Schools in England are facing the biggest governor and trustee recruitment crisis since 2016, with two-thirds (67 per cent) of boards reporting at least one vacancy, according to new research.
The National Governance Association (NGA) annual survey shows that more than one-third of boards (38 per cent) have two or more vacancies.
And the association estimates that there are currently 20,000 vacancies overall.
Governing boards are responsible for the strategic direction of schools or trusts, and the NGA said that the high vacancy rate meant some boards could struggle to “drive improvement” and provide “sufficient scrutiny and financial oversight”.
The survey of 4,185 governors, trustees and academy committee members - which was self-selecting and completed online - also showed that recruitment was getting harder, with nearly two-thirds of respondents (63 per cent) reporting that they faced issues, compared with 55 per cent in 2019.
Schools struggling to recruit governors
And it highlighted a lack of young governors, with just 6 per cent being under 40 - the lowest proportion since 2015 - and 1 per cent being under 30.
The NGA said this meant schools were missing out on the input of governance volunteers who had recently experienced school.
Emma Knights, chief executive of the NGA, said the findings made for “sobering” reading.
“Schools need more good people and we need to get the message out far and wide to engage the thousands we need to fill governance roles”, she said.
She added that the NGA was launching a new film alongside the research aimed at “explaining what school governors and trustees do and their role in helping schools to succeed”.
Speaking about the lack of young governors, Anju Dhir, who took up a governor role in her mid-thirties, said the issue was that young people “simply don’t know what we do - or that we even exist”.
She added: “For governing boards, having someone who has recently experienced our education system is invaluable.”
