To improve teacher supply in England, the government must address workloads, expand the offer of bursaries to more subjects, improve financial incentives for those early in their careers and do more to promote the alternative routes into teaching, a group of MPs has recommended.
The Education Committee’s report on teacher recruitment, training and retention, which followed an inquiry earlier this year, finds that the main issues causing teachers to leave the profession include workloads, pay, disruptive pupil behaviour, a lack of career development opportunities and pressure from having to support pupils with their mental health or family matters.
However, teaching unions have criticised the MPs’ recommendations as being “piecemeal” and “insufficient”.
Teacher recruitment and retention
Closing teachers’ pay gap will improve recruitment, study finds
The report notes that while there had been increases in overall teacher numbers, these have not kept pace with pupil numbers. There are concerns about a demographic peak in pupil numbers that is expected to move through secondary school in the coming years.
Education Committee chair Robin Walker said: “With a ‘bulge’ in the population now arriving at secondary school level, it’s essential we have a teaching workforce that feels respected and rewarded, or else the shortfalls in key subjects will deepen. The government must use all the tools in the box to resolve this.”
It found that excessive workload, rather than pay, was the biggest factor pushing teachers to leave the profession. The MPs said the government needed to help schools implement the recommendations from the workload reduction taskforce and review progress by spring 2025.
Walker said: “DfE must reverse this trend by finding ways to communicate training and best practice to school leaders so that unnecessary work, particularly around data collection and planning, can be discarded for the benefit of staff wellbeing.”
It called for a cross-government assessment of the scale of mental health problems among pupils and a review of the current provision of support by Autumn 2024, as well as additional funding for youth mental health services to avoid teachers having to deal with the “overspill” from inadequate support.
On pay, it recommended that the government analyse the impact of the DfE’s two retention payment schemes – early career payments of between £2,000 and £5,000 that are targeted at schools with a “high need for teachers”, and the levelling up premium payments of between £1,500 and £3,000.
It said that bursaries for those who complete their teacher training should still be targeted at shortage subjects, but lower bursaries should be introduced in other subjects deemed to be “losing out” to these. The government should also introduce a bursary for career-switchers, it said.
Another cause of turnover is a lack of career development opportunities. The report said the DfE should reverse its recent funding cuts for National Professional Qualifications (NPQs), which help existing teachers gain promotions to more senior roles, and expand its subject-specific NPQ offering beyond numeracy and literacy.
“Ministers need to rethink the recent, short sighted cuts to programmes that promoted career development and different routes into the profession,” said Walker. “Without them we will keep on missing targets for recruiting specialist teachers in nearly every subject – forcing more teachers to take on classes outside of their specialism and thereby undermining the quality of education children receive. Funding for these programmes will represent a small fraction of the overall spend on the school workforce and represent value for money.”
Teacher shortages are system-wide and they need system-wide corrections on both pay and workload. Piecemeal responses such as bursaries will never resolve these shortages on their own.” – Daniel Kebede, NEU
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said the measures proposed by the report were insufficient.
“Teacher shortages are system-wide and they need system-wide corrections on both pay and workload. Piecemeal responses such as bursaries will never resolve these shortages on their own,” he said.
“The education system is on its knees. Thanks to a debilitating lack of school funding, excessive workload and pay that has fallen way behind both earnings and the cost-of-living, many graduates have turned their backs on choosing teaching as a profession. The very same factors are driving those who enter it out. ”
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The Education Committee has identified the problem but not the solution. Piecemeal incentives to get and keep people in teaching are not working, and excessive workload can only be fully addressed by schools having enough money to afford enough staff – which is currently not the case.
“This comes down to funding – for pay which is sufficient to attract and retain teachers, and to properly resource schools. But the financial position is actually getting worse, not better, with many schools setting deficit budgets while they make more cuts. You cannot turn around an ocean liner without enough fuel, and the current government just does not understand that.”
Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of NASUWT, said the report failed to recognise that the problem affects almost all locations and subjects.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
He said: “There is a disproportionate focus on so-called shortage subjects and an assumed need for differentiated pay approaches, yet small targeted interventions cannot hope to compensate for the pay shortfall experienced by all teachers. In real terms, teachers’ pay has declined by up to 30% in the last ten years.”
Education sector HR roles on Personnel Today
Browse more HR jobs in education
