The government has said it will offer non-UK trainees and teachers of languages and physics £10,000 to relocate to England as part of a new pilot scheme launching this autumn.
The payment, which will not need to be repaid, is designed to offer financial support to non-UK individuals wanting to either train or work in secondary schools in the country.
The payment will be available to individuals teaching or training to teach any secondary school language other than English, including both modern languages and ancient languages.
In the Schools White Paper last year, the Department for Education said it would introduce a new relocation premium to help with visas and other expenses, with the full details revealed today.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, was unimpressed by the move. He said: “We welcome any action to support the recruitment of teachers, but this pilot initiative is obviously a sign of desperation from the government because of its failure to attract anything like the required number of home-grown trainees.”
James Noble-Rogers, executive director of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers, also sounded caution, saying that the pilot was “a potentially useful initiative” but “might only have a modest impact”.
An increase in funding to encourage domestic students to train to teach across all phases and subjects, and to help retain students on initial teacher training programmes, “might have a greater impact”, he added.
The international relocation payment (IRP) will cover the costs of visas, the immigration health surcharge and other relocation expenses individuals may experience.
The DfE has said it estimates that the scheme could support 300-400 teachers and trainees in the first year of the pilot, although the numbers were “uncertain”. If the highest estimate is correct, the scheme would cost £4 million in its pilot year.
The payment will be run as a pilot in the 2023-24 academic year, and both trainees and teachers will be paid at the end of their first term.
Last year, the DfE announced that the physics bursary for trainee teachers would be increased to £27,000 for the 2023-24 cohort, while the languages bursary would be increased to £25,000.
The DfE also announced last year that bursary and scholarship eligibility would be extended to all non-UK national trainees in physics and languages, two subjects that have seen major teacher shortages.
This was after government figures revealed a shortfall in recruitment for both physics and languages last year.
Today, the DfE has said that, if eligible, trainee teachers will be able to receive both the relocation payment and a bursary or scholarship.
To be eligible, teachers or trainees must be coming to England to work or train in the 2023-24 academic year and not be already living in the UK.
Mr Barton said that, last year, only 17 per cent of the target number of trainee teachers were recruited in physics, and 34 per cent in modern foreign languages, but there were “also shortfalls in a further 11 secondary school subjects”.
He added: “The situation is absolutely dire and sticking plaster solutions such as this pilot project are not going to address the problem. The government simply must address the fact that pay and conditions have significantly worsened over the past decade as this is obviously what is causing this crisis.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “We want to attract the best teachers to ensure our children have the best education possible.
“As part of this work, we are actively looking to boost the number of qualified teachers in our schools, especially in key subjects such as physics and languages, where recruitment challenges can be most acute.
“This includes a range of financial incentives for domestic teachers, including bursaries and scholarships worth up to £27,000 and £29,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainees to key subjects such as maths, physics, chemistry and computing.”
