Boris Johnson has said a “levelling up premium” worth £3,000 will be created to send the “best maths and science teachers” to schools that need them most.

The prime minister told the Conservative Party conference today that he was announcing this as part of the government’s commitment to “levelling up”.

But the move to give extra payments to teachers has been criticised as a U-turn after the government scrapped an early career payment scheme this year.

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The Department for Education said the policy “will target teachers in years one to five (early career teachers) in four core subjects facing the greatest supply challenges (maths, physics, chemistry and computing)”.

Levelling up premiums of up to £3,000 per teacher will “help to address teacher supply challenges and improve teacher quality through retaining teachers who have gained those valuable first years of experience in the classroom”, the government said.

Extra payments to attract teachers to disadvantaged schools 

The government added that it had helped to “turbo-charge” teacher training through investment of £250 million.

In his speech, Mr Johnson said: “To level up, on top of the extra £14 billion we’re putting into education, on top of the increase that means every teacher starts with a salary of £30,000, we’re announcing today a levelling up premium of up to £3,000 to send the best maths and science teachers to the places that need them most.”

Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi said: “Our new levelling up premiums of up to £3,000 per teacher will support the recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in shortage subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most.

“We know that more than one in 10 teachers from the most disadvantaged secondary schools leave to teach in other schools and we are determined to correct that by ensuring a competitive financial offer for teachers to drive up quality: levelling up opportunity with targeted investment.”

“Levelling up premiums will make a real difference to schools across the country as we build back better from the pandemic.”

However, the announcement has been criticised as being a U-turn by a former Department for Education adviser, after the government scrapped an early career payment scheme earlier this year.

Sam Freedman, a former adviser to Michael Gove at the Department for Education, said that this was not a new policy.

Posting on Twitter, he added: “It was a policy launched in 2019 and recently scrapped. This is actually a U-turn to bring it back for maths and science! (Acknowledging that recruitment has gone off a cliff due to wider labour shortages.”

He told Tes: “They’ve spotted they have a big recruitment problem again. But this isn’t enough to turn things around.”

Last year the government said that it was scrapping an early career payment scheme.

The government introduced the early career payments in 2018-19 to encourage teachers in shortage subjects to stay in the profession after qualifying.

They were initially available only to new maths teachers, who were entitled to £5,000 - or £7,500 in high-needs areas - each in their third and fifth years in the job.

The scheme was then adapted, with lower payments, to include maths, physics, chemistry and languages teachers starting postgraduate teacher training in the 2020-21 academic year.

Government challenged over ‘U-turn’

When asked today whether the new announcement was a U-turn, Mr Zahawi told BBC Radio 4‘s World at One: “Well, if we have policies that work then I’m a pragmatist when it comes to these things. If something has worked then why not when you have teacher shortages in the core subjects focused very much on particular parts of the country that really need them; focus very much on years one to five then let’s try and encourage these teachers to stay in the profession or join the profession. So it is a good announcement - it’s the right thing to do.

“I said that illiteracy and innumeracy are the scourge of a modern dynamic economy and it’s something I want to deal with and eradicate.”

Mr Johnson also used his conference speech to praise Brampton Manor Academy in East Ham, East London, a state school that has sent record numbers of students to top universities.

“I’ll tell you what levelling up is,” Mr Johnson said.

“A few years ago they started a school not far from the Olympic Park, a new school anyone could send their kids to in an area that for decades has been one of the most disadvantaged in London,” he added.

“That school is Brampton Manor Academy and it now sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. And if you want proof of what I mean by unleashing potential and by levelling up, look at Brampton Manor.

“And we can do it. There is absolutely no reason why the kids of this country should lag behind, why so many should be unable to read and write or do basic mathematics at 11.”