Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support her Department provides to further education colleges to help them recruit staff from (a) industry and (b) generally to improve vocational skills development.

The department is supporting colleges in their recruitment and training of teachers, including those with industry experience.

The department is delivering Taking Teaching Further, which is a two-year programme that supports further education (FE) providers to recruit and provide early career support to those with the relevant knowledge and/or industry experience to retrain as FE teachers, with the aim to boost the quality and industry-relevance of teaching. We are supporting early career teachers with the Teacher Mentoring Programme, which aims to increase the retention rates of early career teachers by improving the package of support for new and inexperienced teachers, including mentoring and wellbeing support.

The department will be delivering payments worth up to £6,000 to eligible early career teachers in key science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and technical subjects in FE colleges, which could include those transitioning to teaching from industry.

The national FE teacher recruitment campaign, Share Your Skills, targets those with industry skills to think about a career in FE teaching. The campaign raises awareness and increases consideration by encouraging industry professionals to think about using their skills to teach in FE. Potential FE teachers can get information and support on their next steps toward a career in FE teaching from a dedicated campaign website, phone, and email service.