Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve teacher recruitment and retention rates in subjects including (a) Physics, (b) Maths, (c) Design and Technology, (d) Chemistry and (e) Computing.

The number of teachers remains high, with over 465,500 Full Time Equivalent teachers working in state funded schools across the country, including more rural parts of England. This is 24,000 more than in 2010.

The Department recognises there is more to do to ensure teaching remains an attractive, high status profession, and to recruit and retain teachers in key subjects. Reforms are aimed not only at increasing teacher recruitment through an attractive pay offer and financial incentives such as bursaries, but also at ensuring teachers stay and succeed in the profession.

The Department is making £181 million available in bursaries and scholarships to attract trainee teachers in high priority subjects for academic year 2023/24. This is a £52 million increase on the current academic year. As graduates in science technology, engineering, and mathematics attract the highest salaries outside teaching, the Department is offering a £27,000 tax-free bursary or a £29,000 tax-free scholarship in chemistry, computing, mathematics, and physics. The Department is also offering a £20,000 tax-free bursary in design and technology.​

The Department also offers a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools across England, including in rural areas and Education Investment Areas (EIAs). This will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in the subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most. ​ ​

To make teaching here even more attractive to the best teachers from around the world, the Department plans to introduce a new relocation premium for overseas nationals coming here to train or teach languages and physics. This will help with visas and other expenses. The Department will also extend bursary and scholarship eligibility to international trainees in physics and languages.

The Department launched its new digital service, ‘Apply for teacher training’, in autumn 2021 to make it easier for people across the country to train to become teachers, particularly in shortage subjects.

In autumn 2022, the Department expanded the ‘Engineers Teach Physics’ initial teacher training programme with a national rollout. This course has been designed to support more engineers and material scientists to train to become physics teachers. The Department is working closely with sector experts, representative bodies and academic institutions such as the Institute of Physics, Engineering UK, University of Birmingham and the Gatsby Institute to ensure that the course reflects best practice and includes the most up to date industry knowledge.

These initiatives all support the work of the Department in creating a world-class teacher development system by transforming the support teachers and school leaders receive at every stage of their career. This begins with initial teacher training through to an Early Careers Framework based induction for early career teachers, and specialist and leadership National Professional Qualifications for more experienced teachers.