Tensions between education unions and government are rising once again after the DfE’s plea for restraint over teacher pay came hot on the heels of ‘catastrophic’ teacher recruitment figures. Pete Henshaw takes a look at the fall-out
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Anger is rising once again within education unions who are incensed after the Department for Education (DfE) effectively called for restraint for September’s pay award.

In its remit letter to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) – which was delivered much later than usual on December 20 – the DfE took pains to remind the pay body of “cost pressures that schools are facing” when it considers pay from September.

The National Education Union (NEU) fears that the DfE is now pushing for a September pay award of just 1% or 2%.

That the remit letter landed two weeks after initial teacher training (ITT) recruitment figures had revealed a 50% shortfall against the secondary education target only served to raise tensions further.

While primary phase recruitment was “only” 4% under target, the secondary figures (DfE, 2023) showed that 15 out of 18 subjects had under-recruited and missed their targets.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), called the figures “catastrophic” and urged the STRB not to “feel constrained” by the DfE’s remit letter.

Adding insult to injury, unions fear that the late arrival of the remit letter makes a last minute announcement in July over teacher pay for September all the more likely.

 

Pay from September 2024

Education secretary Gillian Keegan has asked the STRB to begin its consideration of pay rises for the 2024/25 academic year and to report its findings “by” May 2024.

However, following this year’s 6.5% pay rise, which came after a sustained period of teacher strike action last year, Ms Keegan has asked the STRB to take into consideration the “cost pressures that schools are already facing and may face over the year – and how they affect individual schools”.

She also directed that the STRB ensures that “any proposals are not too difficult or onerous for schools to implement”.

Her letter states: “In 2024/25, the government is continuing to increase investment in schools, but it remains important that the STRB carefully considers the DfE’s evidence on the impact of pay rises on schools’ budgets.”

Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that between 2010/11 and 2022/23 most teachers will have seen real-terms salary cuts of 13% (Farquharson et al, 2023).

This made the 6.5% pay rise a significant step forward. However, given that much of the 6.5% will have been eaten up by high inflation, the call for restraint has angered education unions.

The fact that the unions blame the government for not having given schools enough funding in the first place makes the remit letter even harder to swallow for many.

Daniel Kebede, the NEU general secretary, said the remit letter was “not only late, but completely inadequate”.

He said: “The government is again attempting to constrain the STRB by forcing it to work within the existing inadequate funding envelope. It is clear that the government is gearing up for a paltry 1-2% teacher pay award next year.

“We will not recruit and retain the teachers and school leaders we need unless we properly value them. The focus of the STRB’s remit should be on repairing the damage to teacher living standards and the competitiveness of teacher pay.”

The remit letter also suggests consideration of a “targeted” approach to pay: “I would welcome your further views on the potential benefits, in principle, of targeting remuneration by subject in the future.”

However, Mr Kebede argues that when secondary recruitment is missing targets in 15 out of 18 secondary subjects, targeted pay rises were not the answer.

He added: "Targeted pay approaches ignore the need for a correction in teacher pay applied across the board to reflect the system-wide recruitment and retention problems shown by the failure to recruit to target in 15 out of 18 secondary subjects.”

Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT, added: “The secretary of state … clearly wants to insist that the pay review body should hold back in its central recommendations on the teachers’ pay award. After 14 years of real-terms pay cuts, and a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention which is getting worse by the day, teachers will expect the pay review body to do its job, free from any interference or intimidation, and to demonstrate their independence.”

Back at ASCL, Mr Barton urged the STRB to live up to its status as being independent of government: “The STRB must not feel constrained by this remit letter and must recommend a pay award for 2024/25 at a level that is sufficient to address the worsening teacher recruitment and retention crisis.

“Gillian Keegan tells the STRB to have regard to the cost pressures that schools are facing in its recommendation. However, those cost pressures are a problem of the government’s making as a result of its failure to allocate any additional money to schools in the autumn statement.

“The STRB must assert its independence as it did for 2023/24. And the government must ensure that there is sufficient money available to schools to meet the cost of the pay award that the STRB recommends.”

 

Teacher recruitment crisis worsens

All this came two weeks after the DfE’s annual ITT recruitment figures showed significant shortfalls across secondary education.

In 2023/24, we have seen 26,955 new entrants to ITT – down from 40,377 in 2020/21.

However, only 50% of the secondary recruitment target has been met, with 13,102 teachers recruited against a target of 26,360.

It means that, with the exception of the Covid-influenced 2020/21 academic year, the overall secondary recruitment target has now not been met since 2012/13.

Only three of 18 subjects have hit target – classics, history, and PE. Notable under-recruitment includes music (27%), MFL (33%), geography (56%), and English (74%). The sciences are also struggling. STEM subjects only recruited 49% of their collective targets, including physics (17%), computing (36%), and maths (63%).

Things are looking better at primary level with 96% of the target having been recruited (8,844 teachers) – an improvement on the 91% of 2022/23.

'Catastrophic': Postgraduate ITT new entrants and percentage of ITT recruitment target reached by subject (source: DfE, 2023)

 

Commenting on the figures, Jack Worth, the school workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research, said they were “dire” and show that “teacher supply is a critical issue facing England’s education system”.

He continued: “The shortfalls being so universal – 15 out of 18 secondary subjects missing their targets and not just in the usual shortage subjects – should be of enormous concern to policy-makers.

“The government needs to take urgent and radical action to improve the attractiveness of teaching as a profession to enter and remain, by enhancing bursaries and other financial incentives, reducing workload and improving the competitiveness of teachers’ pay.

“Without such action, the quality of pupils' education – particularly in disadvantaged areas – will be increasingly affected by these shortages.”

Both Mr Barton and Mr Kebede described the situation as “catastrophic”, Mr Kebede reminding the government that we still lose more than 30% of trained teachers withing the first five years of their career – and that almost 40,000 teachers quit last year before retirement age.

Mr Barton added: “This catastrophic shortfall in postgraduate trainee teacher recruitment has plumbed new depths. It is even worse than last year – which was itself a new low point.

“The supply of new teachers is simply not sufficient to meet the needs of the education system, and we then lose far too many early in their careers.

“The chancellor’s autumn statement provided no more money for education and this makes any meaningful pay award unaffordable next year. This is on top of 13 years of pay erosion which has left teaching salaries lagging behind in the labour market.

“We appeal to the government to see sense and take action. There is simply no issue in education that is more important than fixing the broken teacher pipeline.”