24th October 2016 1:00
By Blue Tutors
The Department of Education released survey data which shows that one in eight new teachers in 2010 had decided to leave teaching within a year. The number rose to almost a third by five years in the profession. Some say this is the latest evidence of the fallout from previous Education Secretary Michael Gove’s 2010 overhaul, including exam and curriculum changes as well as turning over half of secondary schools into academies.
The survey highlighted working conditions and pay as the two main reasons for those leaving teaching. While hours, workload and testing pressures are mounting, constant changes within the education system and a critical blow to teachers’ pensions, many teachers say they feel “demoralised and under-valued”. Many teachers are in fact not leaving teaching altogether, but opting to move into the more lucrative private sector or overseas. A recent government survey showed that those teachers who are left are on the verge of following suit, with 50% of state school teachers considering leaving the profession within the next two years.
The government however claims that retention numbers have been more or less stable over the past 20 years and the replacement is sufficient to compensate for those who choose to leave or retire. What is more, salaries in the UK state education system are above average for OECD countries, and “teaching remains an attractive career”. The National Union of Teachers has said that the government needs to “face that fact that schools have become more difficult and less rewarding places in which to work.”
The last few years of under-recruitment and under-retention are “laying the foundations for a disastrous shortage in years to come”. The problem is particularly bad in subjects like physics, where this is the sixth consecutive that an insufficient number of teachers have been trained to fill the growing demand. Many schools already experience staffing problems, with 730 permanent positions unable to be filled last academic year. This leaves schools having to rely on teachers covering roles outside their area of knowledge and supply teacher agencies to fill the gaps. The result is that “the quality of provision is being lowered” in state schools, and if something does not change this will only continue to decline.