An education union leader has warned that pupil learning will ”suffer as schools struggle to provide the education pupils deserve” in response to new research showing vacancies are continuing to soar.
New UK-wide figures from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) said there are almost 40,000 job vacancies in nursery, primary and secondary schools - a double-digit percentage rise over the past few weeks.
The news comes in the same week that the National Foundation for Educational Research published a report predicting that government is set to miss its teacher trainee recruitment target for the second year in a row, despite a hike in bursaries.
Responding to the figures, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union the NAHT, said the union had been “warning for some time that there is a real crisis in recruitment and retention in schools affecting both leadership and teaching roles”.
“It is little wonder when staff have faced years of significant real-terms pay and funding cuts on top of long hours and a stressful high-stakes system of accountability.”
Mr Whiteman said the government pay offer “falls short” of addressing ”years of significant real-terms pay and funding cuts”.
“Ministers need to wake up and realise that schools are nothing without their staff. Without an ambitious plan to address this crisis and make careers in teaching and leadership more attractive long-term propositions, children’s learning will suffer as schools struggle to provide the education pupils deserve with increasingly stretched resources.”
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “It’s a desperately sad state of affairs when schools are unable to attract people to what should be an enjoyable and rewarding career.
“Teacher shortages are a long-term problem that has only worsened since the pandemic. As many other professions are able to offer greater flexibility, including hybrid working, other aspects such as pay and conditions become increasingly important.
“So when faced with real-terms pay cuts, unsustainable workload pressures and a punitive accountability system it should not come as a surprise that graduates and experienced professionals alike are turning away from teaching.
“The education system cannot function properly if it does not have enough teachers.
“This should be obvious to everyone but the Government has done nowhere near enough to address the cause of the shortages and their recent pay offer suggests they still haven’t grasped the scale of the issue.”
Earlier this month, Tes revealed that secondary school job vacancies had risen to their highest levels for at least six years and were showing “no sign of slowing”.
And figures collected by SchoolDash and analysed by Tes suggested that the biggest proportional rises are being seen in the North West and South West of England.
REC boss Neil Carberry said: “There is nothing in this data that suggests that labour and skills shortages are going away soon, so companies need to adapt their hiring plans to match that. A focus on reaching into different communities, skill development and staff engagement is likely to pay off. Across the country, the best firms are working with their recruiters on this.
“A double-digit percentage rise in the past few weeks to nearly 40,000 nursery, primary and secondary job vacancies shows the scale of the issues with pay, workload and conditions of service among teachers.
“Schools are increasingly struggling to hire as the impact of several years of below-target initial recruitment plays out.”
