Teaching has become less attractive as there are limited opportunities for home working and the profession is not as “family-friendly as it once was”, MPs have heard.
Recruitment into teacher training is at “crisis levels” and teacher retention is “poor” in England, experts from think tanks have warned.
Addressing the education select committee, Philip Nye, a data scientist at the Institute for Government (IfG), said: “Teaching I think, historically, has been seen as quite family-friendly. You get the long summer break which if you have family responsibilities could be very useful.
“But now, perhaps compared to other non-public sector roles, it is not as flexible and family-friendly as it once was.”
Robin Walker, chair of the education committee, said he had heard anecdotally of supermarkets “offering term-time only” and school hours jobs.
He said: “(It) seems to be relatively new and creating a lot of tension, particularly for teaching assistants – for the people below the teacher level in schools – but actually that seems to be a big competitive pressure which people are really feeling.”
