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Unions call for action to tackle four key drivers of teacher recruitment and retention crisis

CPD Recruitment & Retention Pay and conditions Teaching staff Trade unions Workload
“Punitive accountability”, real-terms cuts to wages, a lack of CPD due to funding cuts, and unmanageable workloads – school leaders have once again called for government action to tackle these key drivers of the teacher recruitment crisis.

It comes after a report by the House of Commons Education Select Committee last week warned that the shortage of teachers was a “major challenge” for the education sector and said the government has so far been unable to address the problem.

The Department for Education (DfE) has missed its targets for recruitment to initial teacher education for the last five years and this year there has been a decrease in the total number of new entrants to postgraduate and undergraduate ITT courses. In fact, this year geography, biology and history were the only secondary subjects that exceeded their targets.

MPs on the committee warned that recruitment was particularly challenging in subjects such as computing, physics, design and technology, and maths.

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