Teachers to be offered cash to stay in school

Tuesday 29th January 2019 09:17 EST
 

Cash incentives and a better work-life balance are part of a new attempt to solve England's teacher shortage.

Plans published on Monday by ministers will offer some young secondary teachers £5,000 in their third and fifth years in the classroom - on top of initial £20,000 training bursaries.

Young teachers could also have some protected time for extra training.

Head teachers' unions said more help for young recruits was essential to tackle the crisis in teacher numbers.

Currently, teachers in subjects with shortages, such as physics, chemistry, and languages, can receive a bursary of up to £26,000, but there are no further payments.

The so-called "early career payment" scheme, which rewards teachers for staying in the classroom, has already been trialled for maths teachers.

Labour has criticised the plan, saying the plan will not reverse "six consecutive years" of missed teacher recruitment targets.

By 2025 the number of secondary school pupils in England will have gone up by 15%.

For several years England has had an unfolding teacher crisis, with too few starting to train and too many leaving.

In 2018/19 the number starting training as secondary school teachers was 17% below target.

Subjects such as physics, chemistry and computing face the largest shortfalls.

This has led to a growing proportion of lessons in some secondary schools being taught by teachers who are not specialists.

And there has been growing concern that young teachers are leaving because they feel overworked, burnt out and disillusioned.

Of those that started in 2012, a third were not teaching five years later.


comments powered by Disqus



to the free, weekly Asian Voice email newsletter