The National Audit Office (NAO) has today (Tuesday 12 September
2017) published a report on retaining and developing the teaching
workforce.
Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and
College Leaders, said:
“It’s vital that we do more to keep teachers in the
profession and that means we must address the factors which have
too often drained the joy out of teaching in recent years.
“The government’s endless cycle of education reforms,
combined with severe underfunding and a high-stakes
accountability regime, have placed schools and colleges under
intolerable pressure. This has resulted in unsustainable
workloads at all levels and we desperately need a period of
stability free from further reforms.
“Ministers must also address the issue of teachers’ pay. It
is simply unreasonable of the government to expect more and more
of schools while at the same time imposing real-terms pay
cuts.
“Beyond that, we need to do more to make teaching a
profession which values its staff through properly structured
career development. However, the ongoing education funding crisis
makes this ambition extremely difficult to achieve because
schools and colleges have little money left to spend on
professional development.
“We believe the government and the profession need to work
together to develop a wide-ranging strategy to improve both the
recruitment and retention of teachers. ASCL is fully committed to
supporting any such initiative. We have to put the joy back into
teaching.”
