DfE misses recruitment targets amid fears of teacher shortage crisis
The Department for Education has not met its trainee recruitment targets for the past year, a new report by the National Audit Office (NAO) reveals.
Whitehall’s independent watchdog also found that the need for new teachers is more urgent than ever, as existing teachers leave the profession at increasing rates. The report states that 11% more teachers left over three years (between 2011 and 2014).
The NAO report found a series of weaknesses in the Government’s strategy for recruiting teachers, including a “weak understanding of the extent of local teacher supply shortages and whether they are being resolved”.
Amyas Morse, Head of NAO, said: “Until the Department meets its targets and can show how its approach is improving trainee recruitment, quality and retention, we cannot conclude that the arrangements for training new teachers are value for money.”
These findings come after teaching unions and educationalists have repeatedly warned of a looming national teacher recruitment crisis.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb told TES in July 2015 that he does not believe there is a crisis: “there’s a challenge and we’re managing the challenge”.
The report includes a regional breakdown regarding the number of trainees per 100,000 between 2015 and 2016.
Iain Veitch, Head Teacher of Park View School and Vice Chair of SCHOOLS NorthEast, said:
“The crisis has come about because we have been hit by the perfect storm: at a time of austerity and a shallow recovery from recession, both traditional boom times for recruitment into teaching, young people are looking elsewhere for their futures, whilst an exodus from the profession itself has served only to exacerbate the situation. Although the North has not yet been hit as bad holistically as some of the regions further south, it would be true to say that our colleagues in coastal and rural schools are already suffering badly and the rest of us are worried. We can speculate all we want to as to the cause of crisis, but the simple fact is that we have to act.
“With that in mind, I am delighted that SCHOOLS NorthEast has launched their jobs portal. Our ambitions for this are wide ranging. We aim to appoint a regional board this term, made up of existing school leaders, who will be charged with developing the portal so that it can further support schools, perhaps by providing advice on recruitment and training. Our long term aim is to sign up every school and every teacher and trainee teacher within our region and then to use the surplus created to market the North East as a great place to work – thus we will expand our network in order to draw the best talent to us and create a recruitment tool which is both outward facing as well as inwardly inclusive.”
‘Training new teachers’ National Audit Office report
NAO Teacher Recruitment Report: The 15 key points (Schools Week)
Reactions from teaching unions
National Association of Head Teachers
Association of Teaching Leaders
National Union of Teachers