Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, responds to a report from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), which shows that teacher recruitment and retention is still critical.
“It should be obvious that you cannot run an education system without enough teachers. However, the government has utterly failed to get a grip of this crisis and many schools are struggling to put teachers in front of classes.
“There are critical shortages in maths, science, modern foreign languages and many other subject areas. Schools do their best to mitigate the impact on pupils with non-specialist teachers and supply staff, but it is an increasingly impossible situation.
“The NFER analysis makes clear that the only way out of this mess is with a long-term strategy centered around improved teacher pay and more manageable workloads.
“Crucially, this can only be delivered by ensuring that schools and colleges have enough funding to afford the level of pay awards that are needed, and the staffing required to reduce workload pressures.”