Attracting good teachers

AS the new year began, some schools announced that, because of a shortage of teachers, they might have to introduce a four-day week. The Graduate Teacher Training Registry, the body which co- ordinates recruitment to training courses, has reported that 16 per cent fewer graduates had applied for such courses compared to this time a year ago.

As an immediate reaction, the Government has announced proposed spending of œ32 million to help the most hard pressed schools. Last year, it introduced training salaries for graduates undertaking postgraduate teacher training. It had some effect on recruitment, but the estimate is that 12 per cent of those graduating from British universities would need to be attracted into the teaching profession if the demand for new secondary school teachers is to be met. Furthermore, the problem is not limited to secondary schools; in primary schools too, there is a shortage of good teachers, though it is not so acute.

The implications are serious, and the problem is long term. Not only are people not being attracted into the teaching profession; many good teachers are leaving it. Money is part of the cause, particularly for people deciding not to embark on a teaching career. Employment is a market, and at the moment, there is a buoyant demand for able people.

Talk to teachers even superficially, however, and you quickly discover that money is not the only cause. The other day, for example, I asked an experienced teacher now working as the administrator of a charity (at a salary much the same as she would get in teaching) if she missed her old profession. "Not at all," was the answer, "I am glad to be free of the hassle."

It is a common reaction. For years teachers have been faced with an increasingly onerous proliferation of bureaucratic demands on their time. They have been subjected to inspections - which no good teacher objects to - carried out under the auspices of a body, OFSTED (the Office for Standards in Education) whose recently departed head seemed to be often openly contemptuous of teachers. They have had to take on board a multiplicity of new policies introduced by politicians.

Many of the politicians in charge of education during the past 20 years have been, to put it kindly, from the less impressive end of the political spectrum.

In short, teachers feel that they are not valued. I say "feel" because this remains true, in spite of the fact that the present Government has been taking steps to remedy the situation. It is not a problem susceptible to a simple solution. Money, clearly, is part of the solution - and not just starting salaries. What is needed is a pay structure that offers good teachers a standard of living comparable with that in other professions. Really good teachers are not in it just for the money. The same is true of nurses, and doctors, and academics. Nevertheless, adequate financial rewards are important; it is not realistic, or right, to take the position that people with a sense of vocation should be penalised.

At least as important, in the case of teachers, is public recognition that what they are doing is not just worthwhile, but crucial to the continuing success of the country. That is no exaggeration; indeed, in our knowledge-based society, it is truer than it ever was. Denigration of the kind practised by Mr. Chris Woodhead, the former head of OFSTED, is deeply damaging, and deeply stupid. (It is significant that in BBC Radio Four's "Today" programme list of heroes and villains, on which listeners were invited to vote, Mr Woodhead came top on the list of villains.)

As I write, Mr. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) is pledging the Government to create full employment in all regions of the country over the next five years - with jobs that are skilled, and well paid. Like most political pledges, this one must be treated with some scepticism, particularly in the run-up to a general election. However, the aim is good and, if the economy continues strong, it may be achievable.

The closer it comes to being achieved, the more competitive the employment market will become, and the wider will be the choice of attractive, and often well paid, career possibilities open to graduates. If we take the importance of maintaining a vibrant and adequately staffed teaching profession seriously, introducing policies which will attract good people into it, and encourage them to stay, becomes even more urgent.

BILL KIRKMAN

The author is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. E-mail him at wpk1000@cam.ac.uk

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