A job lot of new worries
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A job lot of new worries
https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/job-lot-new-worries
Perhaps this will finally convince the Department for Education and Employment that schools are facing serious, even catastrophic, shortages. Until now the department has seemed to be in denial of the true picture. Until last week it was insisting there was no increase in primary vacancies this year and only a 10 to 20 per cent one in secondary, in spite of the clear evidence that there are growing gaps in the teaching force. Those gaps will be even worse in September if the extra teachers now being funded and the unknown number quitting the profession thi term outnumber new recruits.
Serious shortfalls have been clear for over a year, and not just in the surveys carried out jointly by The TES and the Secondary Heads Association. Headteachers, recruitment specialists and supply agencies have all been signalling danger. Even Mike Tomlinson, the new chief inspector of schools, bluntly warned in his first annual report that “urgent action is now needed more than ever on recruitment and retention”.
The latest official figures point belatedly to a doubling of vacancies in secondary schools over the past year. But, even now, the department suggests this is only because education authorities were unduly influenced by “media concern” when collecting numbers.
Little wonder ministers’ emergency action to persuade former teachers back to the classroom was so little and so late if it was based on such insight. Repeated warnings have been dismissed. But it is hard to see how this week’s 9,000-plus vacancies can be ignored.
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