"Sluggish and Incoherent": 10 Elementary Tips to Help the DfE Out with Teacher Recruitment

Teacher recruitment is in something of a crisis. For well over three years now, teacher recruitment and retention has been in the headlines, and never more so than this year. The Commons Public Account Committee have noted that there is a “growing sense of crisis”, whilst policies to address shortages have been “sluggish and incoherent.”

The figures around recruitment are pretty stark. In the last six years, the number of primary age students increased by over 14%, and the numbers in secondary are predicted to rise by 19% by 2025. The crisis is neatly illustrated by the following statistics:

• 2016, 42,830 teachers left the workforce (9.9% of the total workforce).
• Nearly 34,910 of these teachers left for reasons other than retirement.
• In the same period just 24,120 newly qualified teachers were trained (replacing 5.6% of the workforce)
• The remainder of workforce replenishment is coming from teachers returning to the profession (14,200).
• Although the number of teachers rose between 2010 and 2016, the numbers of secondary teachers actually fell by 4.9%.

If we assume that pupils numbers increase as stated, we will need a teaching workforce of around 55,000 to cope with numbers by 2025. With applications for PGCE courses reported as being down by as much as 29% this year, it is no wonder there is a feeling of crisis.

Solutions

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