There are a growing number of teachers who have decided to leave the profession and others who may be dissatisfied with their current teaching job, so it remains a huge UK-wide challenge to retain hard-working and good-quality teachers. There is far more work that has to be done to encourage individuals to join the teaching profession in the first place, as the lack of competitive salaries and other higher-paying career options has prevented talented individuals from following their passion for teaching and joining the teaching profession.
The Challenges in Teacher Recruitment:
Teaching No Longer of Interest
There are far fewer graduates who choose teaching due to the workload and lack of career progression. Although teaching is a respectable and rewarding career and senior roles become available with experience, graduates look for faster career and salary progression. Other industries such as finance and IT give teaching a tough competition with more graduates choosing jobs within those sectors.
Shortage of Teachers in STEM
There is a shortage of teachers available to work in demanding subject areas such as Sciences and Maths. Schools are often trying to hire reliable individuals within these roles and recruitment requires a lot of time and resources. In more rural areas, it is often far more difficult to appeal to teachers to work there.
Costly and Time-Consuming
Teacher training takes a lot of time and personal resources and since the requirements are quite rigid and individuals must usually gain QTS to teach, it may prevent those who wish to make a career change from considering teaching at all.
Negative Career Perception
There is a huge negative perception and media focus on how underpaid teachers are and the difficulty of managing student behavior in the classroom, which can detract from the idea that teaching can be a rewarding career option. Teachers require far more day-to-day support in the classroom to thrive and make a real difference.
Although the government and schools face many challenges in the recruitment of teachers who will also remain in their careers in the long term, these challenges can be tackled with a number of new and improved strategies to encourage those people who have a passion for it, to take up teaching as a career.
Strategies to Improve Teacher Recruitment and Retainment:
Paid Routes into Teaching- more access to paid routes into teaching will provide future teachers with the financial incentive to take up teacher training, despite the length of time it may take to become a qualified teacher.
More Career Programmes
Career programs other than Teach First which can attract talent from other careers to make the switch into teaching easily and efficiently would increase teacher recruitment significantly.
Flexible Teaching Options
There are a growing number of online school jobs available, however, teaching is still a profession that requires full face-to-face work hours in most places in the UK. More remote or online work opportunities or schools adopting a more hybrid work approach may attract more people to consider teaching as a career option.
Getting the Word Out
More resources may need to be invested into conveying the word about the potential in teaching. This can start as early as in primary and secondary schools and more links should be made with the career departments of universities.
Diversity and Inclusion
There needs to be a greater focus on targeting underrepresented groups so that teaching is inclusive and for everyone. Career progression must be possible for people of all backgrounds.
Workload management
Workloads for teachers need to be far better managed to reduce stress and allow teachers to feel like they can truly make a difference to students, rather than focus heavily on admin. Addressing the work-life balance can create a huge shift in the negative perception teaching has for some.
Both short-term and long-term changes have to be made to ensure that those with a passion for teaching are able to get into the right career and that teachers who are experienced and knowledgeable remain in teaching despite the challenges. The right incentives and structural changes may just be the way forward.
