11.01.16
Pay and recruitment failures risk national teaching crisis, unions warn
The country is facing a looming national teaching crisis as a direct result of pay austerity and staff shortages, six unions have warned in a joint submission to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB).
Representing the “full spectrum” of the profession in England and Wales, the unions have come together to warn of further pressure in teacher recruitment and retention, indicating a crisis – “not a challenge” – in teacher supply.
Both school budgets and teachers’ pay, frozen at a 1% rise in last year’s Budget, are at a breaking point, they argued, with cash cut in real terms having a knock-on effect on pay rises and national insurance increases from April.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies had already warned that spending per pupil is likely to drop by around 8% during this Parliament. If the government were to maintain the same pupil to teacher ratio at present, the number of teachers would have to increase by 30,000 until 2020, the organisation said.
But unions pushed further today, asking the STRB to recommend a “fair pay award” for the “highly skilled, important jobs” teachers do.
Deborah Lawson, general secretary of Voice, one of the signatories, said: “The erosion of teachers’ pay is causing real problems in attracting graduates into the profession and in retaining experienced teachers.
“The recruitment and retention crisis will intensify if teaching salaries fail to keep up with other professions. There is an increasing need for teachers yet, while student numbers are rising, schools are not able to recruit enough teachers even to replace those who are choosing to leave the profession because of the pressures of workload and poor career and salary prospects.”
Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, added that four more years of pay austerity is a “false economy”, and Mary Bousted of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said slashing salaries would render the government hopeless in providing the thousands of extra teachers “needed over the next three years to cope with the projected rise in pupil numbers”.
In a response to the joint submission, the Department for Education – whose data was allegedly “failing to capture the scale of the crisis” in its data collection – said: “Unlike those who are constantly claiming there is a crisis and scaremongering, this government has worked with the profession to raise the status of teaching and is attracting the best and brightest to a career in the classroom, with the result that record highly qualified graduates and experienced career changers are now teaching in our schools.
“But we are determined to go further, and recognise that some schools find it harder to recruit the teachers they need, which is why we are expanding the great Teach First and Schools Direct programmes, and we are launching the National Teaching Service, which will mean more great teachers in schools in every corner of the country.”