The Education Committee questions experts on how to address the shortage of specialist teachers in subjects including maths, sciences, languages, religious education and DT.
The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) publishes an annual report on the teacher labour market. For 2022/23 it found there had been “historically low recruitment” in both primary and secondary schools.
Department for Education data shows that shortages of teachers are felt unevenly between subjects. While for history, drama and physical education the targets for recruitment on to initial teacher training (ITT) was exceeded in 2022/23, in other subjects the figures were well short. Only 17% of the target was met for recruiting physics teacher onto ITT, alongside 25% for design and technology, 30% for computing, 34% for modern foreign languages, 64% for music, 76% for religious education and 90% for maths.
These shortages increase the likelihood of subjects having to be taught by non-specialist teachers and there are concerns this can impact the quality of pupils’ education in those subjects, and lead to schools facing challenges in offering certain subjects.
