Bureaucracy in teaching has contributed to a significant fall in applicants to train in the profession, a teachers’ union has said.

The claim was made after Tes reported yesterday that teacher recruitment numbers were down by a third compared with a year ago. 

The latest data from Ucas also revealed that the number of trainees for English, maths and science had all dropped by around a quarter compared with last year.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said it was “the biggest drop” of applicants in one year that he could remember.

He said: “This is a real problem. There are obviously some differences year on year with the application dates - but a third is a huge figure.”

Mr Courtney said that changes to the curriculum, the complexity of different routes into teaching and low pay are all contributing to the issue.

‘A lack of trust in teachers’

The main problem is a high workload caused by over-scrutiny and a “lack of trust” in teachers, he added.

“It’s not the hours but the nature of the work - producing evidence for bureaucrats is taking hours of teachers’ time,” he said.

“The workload is not only causing problems with people leaving, but now with people coming into the profession.

“Every teacher feels like they are under scrutiny the whole time. It’s mind-numbing, it’s demeaning, and that needs to be addressed. It’s about the status of teachers and putting trust back into the profession.”

Ian Hartwright, senior policy adviser at the NAHT teaching union, said: “This is the fourth consecutive year that teachers have struggled to recruit - it continues unabated.

“Not only are we not bringing enough people into the profession, but we are failing to retain the ones already there.

‘It’s a time bomb’

“There’s a real worry that we won’t have the longevity in teaching careers with experienced senior leaders. The knock-on is huge, there’s an enormous workload problem - it’s a bit of a time bomb.

“We need professional, high-quality teachers in front of children if we are going to do the best for the children we serve.”

The Department for Education said applications opened a week later in 2017 than in 2016, “so it wouldn’t be right to draw direct parallels” between the two years’ figures.

A spokeswoman said: “There are now a record number of teachers in our schools -15,500 more than in 2010 - and the fact that more than 32,000 new trainee teachers have recently been recruited in a competitive labour market, with historic low unemployment rates and a growing economy, shows that the profession continues to be an attractive career.

“We want to do all we can to help schools with recruitment, which is why we have a range of generous bursaries designed to recruit more teachers in important subjects such as maths and physics.

“We are also creating a free website for schools to publish vacancies to help reduce costs and make it easier for aspiring and current teachers to find new posts.”

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