There is a “substantial risk” that teacher recruitment targets will not be met this year across a large range of secondary subjects, a new report has warned.
Analysis from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) says teacher recruitment targets are likely to be missed in English, which usually meets its target, along with maths and science.
Its report, published today, also predicts “recruitment challenges” in subjects that have traditionally been successful in attracting applicants - such as geography, biology, art and religious education.
Government data released earlier this month showed the number of initial teacher training (ITT) applications was 23 per cent lower than it was in February 2021.
Today’s report predicts a recruitment shortfall in “persistent shortage subjects”, such as physics, which is estimated to be recruiting at less than 20 per cent of the level required to meet its target.
It also suggests that subjects including maths, chemistry, computing, design and technology and modern foreign languages (MFL), will continue to have recruitment challenges this year.
Before the pandemic, physics, maths, MFL and computing were already recruiting below their targets and continued to do so even during the pandemic when teacher recruitment was boosted.
The NFER’s new report also looks at the latest retention trends and conclusions drawn from a survey of school leaders. It makes a series of recommendations to improve recruitment and retention in the profession.
The foundation warns that “without action”, teacher shortages could “increasingly come to negatively impact on pupils’ education and learning”.
Cheryl Lloyd, education programme head at the Nuffield Foundation, which funded the research, said “more substantial interventions” were needed to encourage more applicants to ITT courses.
She warned that addressing these shortages was key to ensuring pupils “can benefit from specialist teaching in these subjects” and that “schools across the country can offer a breadth of course options to their students”.
The report also points out that this year’s applicants will not begin training until September 2023, giving the government and schools “a window of time to plan and take action”.
Commenting on the report, Jack Worth, NFER school workforce lead, said it was clear that teacher supply challenges across subjects were “re-emerging after two years of having eased due to the pandemic”.
“Tackling this effectively requires policy action to improve the financial and non-financial attractiveness of teaching. ”
The research also finds that teacher retention rates, which had improved substantially in 2020 during the pandemic due to economic uncertainty and lockdown, also appeared to be returning towards pre-pandemic levels in 2021.
The NFER also warns that schools’ capacity to mentor trainees and new teachers is likely to remain under strain due to a range of pressures.
It said this could be linked to the increased demand for schools’ mentoring capacity as a result of the Early Career Framework (ECF) national rollout, which began in September 2021.
Teacher pay has ‘lost competitiveness’
Previous analysis by NFER found that teachers’ pay is lower in real terms than in 2010-11 and has lost competitiveness relative to the wider economy over the last decade.
NFER previously found that the 2021-22 teacher pay freeze led to a sharp fall in real terms due to inflation rising to 5 per cent.
While the average earnings in the UK economy also fell in real terms, it fell further in teaching.
The foundation previously warned that a prolonged teacher pay freeze risked a supply “challenge”.
The report concludes that this loss of teacher pay competitiveness over the last year is likely to contribute to additional recruitment and retention challenges.
Reacting to the new report, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said that teacher and school leader recruitment and retention had been “severely damaged” by “more than a decade of eroded salaries”.
Mr Whiteman warned that “graduates don’t just look at starting salaries - they want careers that are viable and rewarding long-term”.
Mr Worth said that, while improving competitiveness in teacher pay was important, “the increases seem insufficient on their own to address the emerging recruitment and retention challenges”.
The report also warns that while focusing on the pay of early career teachers (ECTs) could encourage more to the profession, it could actually exacerbate teacher shortages in London.
This month, the Department for Education committed to its proposals of a £30,000 starting salary for teachers by the 2023-2024 academic year.
While this “is likely to lead to a greater overall impact on teacher retention”, as ECTs have the highest attrition rates, the NFER says it will also result in a “significant flattening” of the pay structure.
It warns that the pay proposals will reduce the London weighting. As a result, the inner London premium will be reduced from 25 to 18 per cent compared to the rest of the country.
Past NFER research in 2017 revealed London schools struggle more with recruitment and retention, on average.
The new report suggests that the DfE’s pay proposals risk exacerbating the supply challenges faced by London schools.
The NFER recommends that the government should maintain the London teacher pay premium at its current level to avoid this.
Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said the report revealed that the government was making an “unmitigated mess” of education.
“As predicted, teacher recruitment suffered as soon as the worst of the pandemic was over. What is even more worrying is the fact that subjects previously less impacted are now finding significant shortfalls in applicants,” she said.
Dr Bousted cited “low pay”, “unmanageable workload” and an “overbearing accountability system” for making the teaching profession unattractive.
Professor Geraint Jones, executive director and associate pro-vice-chancellor, National Institute of Teaching and Education, said: “There’s no doubt the pandemic has had a significant impact on young people and, once again, as a society we will be relying on teachers to plug critical gaps in learning and student welfare.
“Yet this is an increasingly heavy burden to bear for a profession which is itself in crisis, with risks to teacher recruitment and retention yet again laid bare by this report.
“While government is clearly eager to address the issues through its new levelling up agenda, the truth is we need more substantial and long-term change: high-quality, flexible training to attract aspiring teachers to the profession; a culture which embraces ongoing development and mastery; and a pay structure that rewards keeping expertise in the classroom.”
