Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to secure sufficient recruitment and retention in the teaching profession.

The number of teachers is at an all-time high: there are now 457,300 full time equivalent teachers, up 15,500 from 2010. The number of new teachers entering our classrooms continues to outnumber those who retire or leave, and the number of teachers returning to the profession is 8% higher than in 2011.

We are continuing to offer generous bursaries to recruit the best graduates into the profession. From 2018 we are increasing funding across all high priority subjects. Our prestigious scholarship scheme will also continue, offering a package of tailored support and up to £28,000 tax-free for scholars in six subjects.

Teachers will benefit from the newly announced rise in the student loan repayment threshold and we will be piloting a new student loan reimbursement programme for science and Modern Foreign Language teachers in the early years of their career, targeted in the areas of the country that need them most.

We are taking action to address the factors that influence the decisions of those teachers who do decide to leave the profession. We recognised the problem of unnecessary workload when we launched the Workload Challenge in 2014. Our responses to this and the 2016 Teacher Workload Survey set out comprehensive programmes of action to be taken, including spreading best practice about workload reduction. We will continue our extensive work with the profession, teaching unions and Ofsted to support the retention of teachers.