The Chartered College of Teaching’s “first and foremost” job must be to raise the standing of the teaching profession, the organisation’s new president has said.

Stephen Munday, who was elected the first president of the body on Sunday, suggested that improving the status of the profession would have a bigger impact on recruitment and retention than bursaries offered to those who train to be teachers.

Mr Munday is executive principal of Comberton Village College and chief executive of The Cam Academy Trust in Cambridgeshire.

Asked by Tes what was the most important issue facing the teaching profession, he pointed to recruitment and retention and funding.

But he added: “Of course I’m bound to say we need more funding in our country going into the education system. I’m not so sure that’s specifically the Chartered College’s job to be saying that above the trade unions and others.

“I think the Chartered College’s job first and foremost…It’s to do with the status of the profession and the way that we in this country see the teaching profession and its incredibly significant value.”

“It’s to do with people wanting to come into the profession and wanting to stay in the profession and feeling that here’s a profession that is massively valued.

“That’s the heartland of what I think the Chartered College needs to be working on, what we need to be saying.”

Mr Munday said that teaching could be made more attractive via a focus on “professional development, career opportunity and progression”.

He said the Charted College should be coming up with its own ideas in these areas, rather than “waiting for initiative x, y and z”.

Asked about the government’s recent decision to widen access to bursaries, Mr Munday said he supported providing financial incentives to those considering a career in teaching.

But he added: “The status of the profession and an acknowledgement of the importance of that and the worthwhileness, probably matters even more than the exact amount that a bursary is or isn’t.

“That does have the biggest impact on people’s views about entering and staying in the profession.”

Citing recent widely publicised research by the Royal College of GPs, Mr Munday said he envisaged a time when the Chartered College would be seen as similarly authoritative about pedagogy.

“Imagine the news headline: ‘The Chartered College of Teaching had been looking into some key areas of practice with teaching and had announced that, actually, all evidence seems to suggest that this is a positive way forward.’

“So the profession is going to get on with it and do it for the good of education for all young people in the country.”