Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, responds to the National Audit Office report on uncertainties over the government’s pledge to recruit 6,500 new teachers.
“Virtually every school and college in the country is having to manage teacher shortages because of long-standing nationwide recruitment and retention problems.
“The last government failed to address this issue and it is not clear how the current government intends to achieve its pledge of recruiting 6,500 new teachers or whether this will be anywhere near enough.
“We’ve had no end of piecemeal policies but the overriding factors remain unresolved – pay levels are not competitive enough and workload and stress is driving teachers out of the profession.
“This will only be resolved by improving pay, school and college funding, and dialling down the excessive pressures of Ofsted inspections and performance tables.
“Instead, schools and colleges are facing huge budgetary pressures and the government and Ofsted seem hell-bent on increasing the pressure of inspections with a new five-point grading scale. This is only likely to further deepen the recruitment and retention crisis.”