Teachers in England with a tenure of up to 20 years will not have experienced working in a teaching sector without a recruitment crisis. 

Last year the government admitted it had missed its own initial teacher trainee recruitment targets every year for the past eight years.

For the first time in recent history, the number of teachers leaving the profession was higher than those entering. In 2019, 28,000 new teachers started, while more than 35,000 teachers left for reasons other than retirement - an increase of more than 10,000 since 2011.  

The pressures of league tables and Ofsted’s big stick, according to many, have turned the job into one that is no longer trusted. Others cite the impossible workload, low pay, unruly pupils and a lack of training both initially and throughout the job. 

Is it a surprise that, with such a bad reputation, the teaching profession acts as a stop-gap for graduates?

We have long envied educational giants like Finland, Singapore and Ireland. Their lighter-touch school inspection regimes and oversubscribed teacher training programmes are well documented.

Their training is rigorous and continuous, and pay and working conditions are as you would expect of a high-esteemed profession. In-country league tables or big brother inspection systems are not required.

To achieve such a culture in England is almost unthinkable. We are just too stuck in the rut.

Making teaching popular again

Teaching would have to become popular again for it to be oversubscribed. Ofsted would have to retire or at least lose some power. League tables would need to be abolished. Teacher training institutions would need to be able to be choosy in their recruitment. 

What would we give to press pause, give teaching some respect and build a new culture in the profession?

Or is that what’s suddenly happened?

Over recent months, homeschooling and the realisation of parents nationwide of the difficulty involved in teaching our own children, let alone 30 others, has led to a new appreciation for teachers.

Like nurses, doctors, food suppliers and many others who are seeing us through the pandemic, teachers are seen as key workers again.

The impending recession is likely forcing many to consider teaching as a safe and prized job option. 

As a newly established national teacher training institution, we were expecting 35 trainees in our first cohort in September. Instead, we’ve had 1,500 enquiries and more than 500 applications. The signals are that a swell of new teachers is coming.

A surge in teacher training applications

The recent tragic loss of lives and livelihoods far outweigh the positive signs that the teaching sector may rebuild itself.

But once this is over and recovery starts, the government may be given a lifeline to heal our education system and create a new culture within it.

And this is my advice to them - it’s not that difficult.

Train our teachers well, pay them well and then trust them to do the job. And perhaps this new generation of teachers will never know what a recruitment crisis looks like.

Geraint Jones is the executive director and associate pro-vice-chancellor of the National School of Education and Teaching, Coventry University