Millions of households across the country will have noted this weekend’s news of two further teacher strike days in July with emotions ranging from resignation to anger. Teacher strikes really do affect the wider population: how on Earth do hard-pressed parents arrange childcare? That there have already been five national and three regional unpaid strike days by the NEU, Britain’s largest teaching union, only exacerbates the tension. How bad is the situation that teachers, who I can attest unequivocally, care passionately about their pupils’ education, are driven to such desperate measures?
We are sleepwalking into teacher recruitment armageddon. The number of teacher vacancies posted until February this year was 93 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels; 37 per cent higher that in the same period of 2021-22. This date matters. Most teachers have to give a full term’s notice. But, reports this past week indicated that there were still some 7,500 unfilled vacancies, an astonishing figure when one thinks about the juggling with supply teachers or increased class sizes that it will result in if not remedied.
With pay levels so far out of kilter with the general jobs market, new teacher training recruitment targets are not just down but falling off a metaphorical cliff. The Government’s Initial Teacher Training (ITT) targets have been increased for 2023-24 from 20,945 to 26,360. That’s partly a reaction to last year’s targets being missed by an astonishing 40 per cent. Worse, we are on track to meet only 47 per cent of this year’s targets. 40,000 fed-up teachers, almost nine per cent, of the workforce quit teaching before retirement age last year, a record high.
The situation in expensive London has been described as “disastrous”: an 11 per cent drop in new teacher applications in one year. We have become scarily accustomed to there being a recruitment crisis in some subjects like physics and computing. But this is now spreading, not helped by the vogue for working from home in other sectors. For the first time, there is a crisis in recruiting English teachers, of which I am one.
Currently, 900 schools are advertising for an English teacher, despite that term’s notice. I mean, who would not want to work a pittance for 11-hour days, which include having stationery and pens thrown at you, being told to “shut your mouth, man” or have personal objects stolen from my desk behind my back while I was in class. All in my week’s work.
The next 10 days in which I have to mark up to 300 exam essays, write 30 tutor reports and create assessment feedback lessons while entering exam data ON TOP OF teaching no longer fills me with dread, more a resigned amusement. Only, it’s not funny. I arrive at 7.10am most days. By 7.25am twice last week, I was consoling tearful colleagues about the dreadful things that happened to them the day before. Even most parents are sympathetic and they are appalled at the salaries too. The Pavolovian right-wing refrain “but the holidays…” (in which we will also be planning and training) just isn’t a good enough answer. This is now a genuine crisis with huge societal implications.
