The government has seen a fall in entrants to primary teacher training and has missed its recruitment target for secondary by nearly 40 per cent, according to the latest Department for Education data.
Reacting to the latest figures, experts have warned that the government’s manifesto pledge of recruiting 6,500 more teachers is unlikely to be achieved without a specific strategy in place.
The DfE achieved 88 per cent of its primary initial teacher training (ITT) recruitment target for 2024-25 - down from 94 per cent the previous year. The target has increased since last year from 9,180 to 9,400, but entrants decreased from 8,633 last year to 8,258.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it was a “great concern” that primary recruitment has worsened since last year.
For the 2023-24 intake, the government had missed its target for the recruitment of secondary teacher trainees by 50 per cent. Recruitment for secondary ITT for 2024-25 remains significantly below target this year at 62 per cent, but there has been a 16 per cent increase in the number of entrants year on year.
The target for secondary teachers was not met for 12 out of 17 subjects this year.
Teacher recruitment trouble
Jack Worth, school workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), said the government is “highly unlikely” to achieve its aim of recruiting 6,500 teachers without a “comprehensive and funded strategy”.
He added that the recruitment of primary teachers falling short “highlights the breadth of the overall supply crisis”.
The NFER warned earlier this week that fulfilling the 6,500 aim would require pay rises of nearly 10 per cent a year for three consecutive years, if a change in salary was the only incentive.
The government has only met its annual recruitment target for secondary teachers once since 2012-13 - in 2020-21. It has achieved its primary teacher recruitment target in five of the past nine years.
The only subjects that met their secondary teacher recruitment target this year were biology, history, physical education (PE), English and classics.
However, several science subjects, and maths, saw an increase in ITT entrants on last year - maths by 24 per cent, physics by 46 per cent, biology by 45 per cent and computing by 22 per cent. Chemistry remained unchanged.
For 2024-25, scholarships for those training to teach maths, physics, chemistry and computing were brought up to £30,000 tax-free. Bursaries for biology and design and technology were also brought up to £25,000.
Mr Di’Iasio also warned that it will be “extremely difficult” for Labour to meet its 6,500 teacher target.
“The problems in recruiting trainee teachers clearly continue to be grave, but this is only one of the issues behind teacher shortages across the country,” he said.
“Another factor is that many teachers leave the profession early in their careers. The only answer to this is a significant improvement in pay and conditions which attracts people into teaching and keeps them there.”
The DfE said work is underway to recruit 6,500 new teachers. A spokesperson added: “Overall, there are more people training to teach this year than last, but we do not underestimate the scale of the challenge ahead and the parlous state of teacher recruitment and retention we have inherited.”
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