Making teaching an attractive career matters, most obviously to schools and their immediate communities, but also to those preparing the next generation of teachers, to researchers trying to throw light on where things have gone wrong, and with policymakers, looking for solutions.
Solving this problem is urgent. NFER’s 2023 Teacher Labour Market report shows just how much the teacher recruitment and retention challenge in England has intensified since the Covid-19 pandemic. Teacher vacancies posted by schools are up 93% compared to a similar point in 2019. The DfE’s recruitment targets for ITE are not being met. Staffing challenges are particularly acute in schools working with our most disadvantaged communities. All this has led the Commons Education Select Committee to launch its own inquiry into what can be done to improve the school workforce situation.
So pivotal and pressing is this issue that we have made it the first topic of our new debates series ‘What Matters in Education?’, run in collaboration with the ESRC Education Research Programme (ERP).
‘Teacher recruitment, retention and development – rethinking policy and practice priorities’ takes place on 3rd July 2023, with speakers from policy, research and practice backgrounds discussing the issues together. We hope you can join us online – we recommend booking your (free) place for the debate. We are keen to tap into aspects of the topic that have been less explored to date and test the current consensus on how they might best be resolved.
