Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support rural (a) primary schools, (b) secondary schools and (c) further education colleges to recruit (i) sustainable and (ii) adequate levels of staff.

High-quality teaching is the in-school factor that has the biggest positive impact on a child and young person’s outcome in schools and colleges. Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child. This is why the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new teachers across secondary and special schools and in our colleges over the course of this Parliament.

The government is announcing a 4% pay award to school teachers and leaders, accepting in full the School Teachers’ Review Body’s pay recommendation and doing so earlier than at any point in the last 10 years. This comes on top of the 5.5% pay award that we announced last July which has resulted in early improvements in recruitment and retention and has put us on course to meet the pledge. Over 2,000 more people are training to become secondary school teachers this year and recruitment is on track to improve even further for the cohort set to start training in 2025/26, with 1,070 more acceptances to postgraduate and teacher degree apprenticeship initial teacher training courses in secondary subjects by the end of April 2025, compared to the same time last year. Additionally, over 2,500 more teachers are expected to stay in the profession over the next three years.

The department is doing more to continue to improve recruitment and retention. We have increased funding for training bursaries to £233 million in 2025/26, worth up to £29,000 tax-free, and initial teacher education apprenticeships to attract trainees in key subjects such as maths, physics and equivalent subjects in further education (FE) such as construction. For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the department is also offering a targeted retention incentive worth up to £6,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools and technical subjects in all FE colleges, including rural and coastal areas.

As part of our recruitment and retention strategy, it is vital that we improve the day to day experience of teachers and ensure that teaching is once again a respected and attractive profession that teachers remain and thrive in. We are supporting teachers to reduce their workload and improve their wellbeing, and enabling greater opportunities for greater flexible working.

To provide targeted regional support, including for rural areas, the department has established a network of 87 Teaching School Hubs across the country. The Hubs provide approved high-quality professional development to teachers at all stages of their careers and play a significant role in delivering initial teacher training, the Early Career Framework and National Professional Qualifications.

We want to empower FE colleges to recruit the right teachers and subject specialists for their local areas. Our national FE recruitment campaign is targeted to raise awareness, improve perceptions and understanding, and increase consideration of a career in FE amongst industry professionals, and supports professionals to find FE jobs in their area.

We have specific programmes to support these industry experts start their careers in FE. Taking Teaching Further (TTF) is a two-year programme that supports FE providers to recruit and provide early career support to those with the relevant knowledge and/or industry experience to retrain as FE teachers, aiming to boost the quality and industry-relevance of teaching.

We are also investing over £400 million more in 16-19 education in the 2025/26 financial year and have made approximately £50 million of this funding available to colleges for April to July 2025 to respond to current priorities, such as recruitment and retention.