Labour came out swinging early in the new year with a press release on teacher recruitment, pointing to what they see as “the Government’s failure on this extremely basic issue.” Shadow Education Secretary Lucy Powell seems to be stepping up the rhetoric at a time when the government seems determined that there is no crisis. Schools Minister Nick Gibb said in December that “the profession is in very good shape” and accused those who use the word ‘crisis’ of “talking down the profession.”
This is the latest in a long running battle of words on the issue. The government seems determined that there is no crisis, and claims that “the number and quality of teachers in our classrooms is at an all-time high”. Labour points out that the government has changed the way it presents figures in the initial teacher training census, taking out figures from undergraduates and adding those who come through Teach First. This makes it difficult to compare against data from previous years, and to understand whether enough teachers are being recruited.
As one would expect, recruitment problems seem to be worse in rural and coastal areas; something that the Department for Education acknowledges. Sir Michael Wilshaw weighed in on the debate in the Ofsted Annual Report, arguing that there is a danger of a “two-tier system” developing with “one group of schools more able to recruit and another less able to do so.” Various other groups have urged the government to do something about the issue, including the Association of College and School Leaders, National Union of Teachers, and the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers.
So why are teachers leaving the profession, and why aren’t more new graduates moving into teaching? We must rely on anecdotal evidence for the answers to these questions, due to a lack of hard evidence. Teaching unions highlight unpredictable pay as one issue. Some teachers have major disagreements with the government’s drive towards more testing. Whilst these are no doubt contributing factors, the deeper issues seem to be with heavy workloads and punitive Ofsted inspections.
These issues won’t go away with financial incentives for new teachers, or the creation of a National Teaching Service. The problems are with both recruitment and retention. The margins for error are small. A failure to recruit sufficient numbers, coupled with a significant number of teachers leaving the profession, could spell a real crisis. There are already examples of increasing class sizes, non-specialists teaching subjects such as maths, and pupils having to move between schools for lessons.
It’s time for the government to acknowledge the problem and work with those in the profession to prevent a full crisis. The summer budget and Autumn Statement both mentioned “fixing the roof whilst the sun is shining.” Let’s fix it now, before it rains.
