Teachers: Recruitment

(asked on 7th June 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to increase teacher recruitment.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 10th June 2021

The number of teachers remains high, with more than 453,000 working in schools across the country – over 12,000 more than in 2010.

The Department recognises, however, that more needs to be done to ensure that this level of recruitment is maintained. One of the Department’s top priorities is to ensure that we continue to attract and retain high-quality teachers, for example through transforming the support and professional development teachers receive, as well as helping create the right climate for head teachers to establish supportive school cultures.

The teacher pay increases in recent years are making a substantial difference to the competitiveness of the early career pay offer (for example, this academic year, teacher starting salaries have increased by 5.5%).

In terms of attracting new trainees into teaching, there has been an increase in the number of new trainees this year – in the academic year 2020/21, 41,472 new trainees were recruited overall – over 7,000 (23%) more than in 2019 – which shows that teaching continues to be an attractive career option.

Additionally, in the academic year 2020/21, 14,994 postgraduate trainees were recruited to EBacc subjects – 1,987 more trainee teachers than the previous year.

The quality of this year’s trainee teachers remains high, with 23% of postgraduate entrants holding a first-class degree in the academic year 2020/21, which is 3 percentage points higher than the previous year.

The Department is committed to ensuring that these recruits receive the best training possible. From this September, new trainee teachers will be entitled to at least three years of evidence-based professional development and support, starting with the new Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Core Content Framework, followed by a two-year induction based on the Early Career Framework (ECF).

The ECF is the biggest teaching reform in a generation and will give early-career teachers access to high-quality training and mentoring. In addition to this, the Department is launching new National Professional Qualifications for teachers and school leaders at all levels, from those who want to develop expertise in high-quality teaching practice to those leading multiple schools across trusts.

The Department recognises that there is further to go in some subjects. That is why a range of measures have been put in place, including bursaries worth up to £24,000 and scholarships worth up to £26,000, to encourage talented trainees to key subjects such as chemistry, computing, mathematics, and physics. There are also training bursaries available as part of the Subject Knowledge Enhancement programme, which helps trainees in seven EBacc subjects to gain the depth of subject knowledge needed to train to teach their chosen subject.

The Department is taking action to ensure recent success in increasing ITT recruitment is maintained. For example, the Department is launching a new one-stop ITT application system. The ‘Apply’ service will be fully rolled out by October 2021.

Additionally, the Department is taking steps to make it easier for schools to recruit teachers. ‘Teaching Vacancies’ is a free, national job listing service that is saving schools money and attracting high-quality candidates: https://teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/?_ga=2.204282384.1894025638.1594023142-892610644.1591690663. This service can help schools to quickly list vacancies for both permanent and fixed-term teaching staff.

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