VIEWS & OPINION


ITT: how can we attract more people to the profession, and keep them?


Comment by EMMA HOLLIS, Chief Executive of the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT)


As I write this article, NFER’s Teacher Labour Market in England Annual Report 2024 has been released suggesting that 10 out of 17 secondary subjects are likely to under-recruit in 2024-25 based on Initial Teacher Training (ITT) applications made up to February 2024.


Overall secondary recruitment is forecast to be around 61 per cent of target – an improvement compared to 2023-24. Primary recruitment, however, which is usually at or above its target each year, is forecast to reach only 83 per cent of target next year. The latest trainee number census


also highlighted that the target for both primary and secondary was missed by 38 per cent – with 26,955 new entrants to ITT in 2023-24 compared to 40,377 in 2020-21.


A focus on retention, even prioritising this over recruitment at least in the short term, would definitely lessen the need to recruit so many teachers going forward but overall there are not enough teachers in the system and it has certainly been a rough ride for ITT providers. We all recognise the need, of course, to recruit more teachers – and whilst this does not immediately help schools needing teachers today, the question is ‘how’ any newly-elected government will approach this in the longer term to meet the needs of the education system.


Drawing on our own consultation with NASBTT members on what they feel is missing from current policy from an ITT recruitment perspective – here are three solution-focused proposals that any political party should consider as their focus.


• Make teacher training affordable to everyone All candidates must be able to afford to train as a teacher in the first place. This is critical for the talent pipeline, and increasing diversity of applicants. ITT providers have suggested this could involve reducing tuition fees for all trainees (government subsidising the cost of ITT rather than ITT providers being paid less for the programme), exploring fee grants during the training year, and introducing bursaries for primary trainees.


This government believes that bursaries exert the strongest influence on teacher recruitment.


Bursaries are a key policy tool used to attract more people to enter teacher training, particularly for high-priority subjects that might otherwise struggle to recruit enough teachers. Yet the issue is that primary teachers are often not eligible for bursaries, despite many areas reporting recruitment challenges for primary this year, and they could be used in a more targeted way.


Bursaries are not levered regionally, for example, although we have had policies such as the levelling up premium which might be considered an attempt to do so. However, we have noticed that schools that fall into opportunity areas are not always the places where we see teacher shortages so would argue they are not always targeted correctly and would advocate for a more nuanced approach by subject and region.


There would inevitably be things to think through – the impact on schools/ITT providers sitting on the border of a region that was granted additional funding, for example – but as a proposal this


28 www.education-today.co.uk would be worth modelling and exploring further.


We are also modelling a bigger idea of student loan forgiveness for new teachers working in state schools for a certain number of years to see what potential benefit this would bring.


• Flexible working: less talk, more action


As a sector we need to close the gap between current approaches to flexible working and the demand for more innovative approaches that we know the next generation has come to expect. A majority 89% of ITT providers told us they think that greater opportunities for flexible working would attract more applicants to the sector – it is also a known factor in retention and, a focus on retention, even prioritising this over recruitment at least in the short term, would lessen the need to recruit so many teachers going forward.


Our work with the Flexible Working in Multi-Academy Trusts and Schools (FWAMS) project team to develop guidance and support for the ITT sector to inform, empower and support providers in implementing flexi-working is a starting point.


As organisations start to embrace the opportunity to work more flexibly, there are clear and obvious barriers to schools being able to replicate this practice within our working environment. But with the proven benefits to productivity, wellbeing and retention, it is vital that the education sector feels empowered and confident to pursue bold and ambitious plans to create a flex-working environment for current and future staff.


Whilst direct policy change is not the purpose of the FWAMS project, a clear step forward is to outline the key principles of a flexi- working approach to providers to try to support recruitment and retention.


• Tackle public perceptions on teaching


From my perspective, we need to think bigger – and make the case for what education (and ITT within that) should look like in 10 years’ time.


We need for a long-term vision for the sector, and a process for getting there, and this is something that we would argue should remain regardless of who is leading the country. There is benefit of a cross-party plan, and we have previously said there is merit in removing politicking and the election cycle from education. At the heart of this is a discussion on what we want schools to be and do. Teaching is one thing, but with the closure of other key services, teachers have to support wider health and social care issues which come with the job makes it harder.


We know why people want to become teachers, but we also need to understand why young people are not considering or choosing a career in teaching – and use the evidence from that to inform action. This would be a major step forward.


We therefore call for DfE-commissioned research into why undergraduates are not choosing teaching as a career option, rather than relying on research which focuses on those that do. Finally, in all the discussion on increasing trainee numbers, we must not ignore the practical issue of funding for ITT and what providers need going forward. Income for ITT providers has not risen above the cap of £9,250 for many years whilst salaries and the cost of goods and services have increased dramatically in that timescale. We cannot continue to be asked to deliver more with ever less resource and a hard and realistic look needs to be taken at what funds are really needed to continue to deliver high-quality ITT. We have stated our ambition for ITT, but that ambition needs appropriate backing.


April 2024


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