Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government has made an assessment of the potential impact on student enrolment of workforce recruitment and retention levels in the further education sector.

The department estimates enrolment of students in 16-19 education for the purpose of forecasting required funding, but this does not reflect an estimate of teacher supply. However, the department works closely with the sector to continually review the evidence around the impact of workforce supply and demand. We know the further education (FE) sector will need to grow the overall size of its teaching workforce due to the roll-out of T Levels, which require more teaching hours, and due to demographic pressures and the delivery of other important skills reforms.

To support providers to recruit and retain teachers, the department is increasing the level of overall investment in the FE sector. The Spending Review 2021 made an extra £1.6 billion available for 16-19 education in the 2024/25 financial year compared with 2021/22. The department has boosted specific programme cost weightings by 10% in the 2023/24 financial year to support the additional costs of recruiting and retaining staff in construction, manufacturing, engineering, and digital subject areas.

The department is also supporting teacher recruitment in the sector through a national campaign to encourage industry professionals to become FE teachers. Our Taking Teaching Further programme has supported around 1,000 industry professionals to train as FE teachers since 2018. The department is providing bursaries worth up to £29,000 each, tax free, to support FE teacher training in priority subject areas for the 2023/24 academic year.

The department is also offering early career support for teachers in the form of access to a trained mentor through our Teacher Mentoring Programme, which was announced in March 2023. We will continue to work with the sector to consider options for providing further support so that all learners are able to benefit from high-quality teaching.