At this year’s Labour Party Conference, the Education Policy Institute has partnered with Teach First to hold a public panel on: ‘The road to 6,500 new teachers – getting high quality teachers to where they are needed most’
Recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers is at the heart of Labour’s education strategy. Teachers are essential to ensuring all children can thrive, and the latest recruitment figures for the 2024/25 academic year have been encouraging, with a 6% increase in the number of new entrants to postgraduate Initial Teacher Training (ITT) courses, compared to the previous academic year. This reverses a trend of year-on-year decreases since the pandemic period. That said, the number of new entrants to undergraduate ITT courses has continued to fall and for both postgraduate and undergraduate courses, the number of entrants remains below pre-pandemic levels.
On retention, we know turnover rates are not spread equally across schools; teacher retention is lower for certain subjects and for schools facing higher levels of disadvantage, leading the government to continue to fund targeted retention incentives for shortage subjects, particularly in STEM. However, NFER research reveals retention rates have not yet increased significantly, and secondary schools are relying on under-qualified and non-specialist teachers to plug the gap.
There is a long road ahead to achieving the pledge to recruit 6,500 new teachers and falling rates of qualified and experienced teachers pose a substantial risk to the quality of education. This panel will consider what current recruitment and retention policies have achieved so far and what more is needed from education policy to tackle these issues. The debate on qualified teacher pay will also be considered, including how to improve the attractiveness of different routes into teaching to increase recruitment to shortage subjects and to schools with higher disadvantaged intakes, where high-quality, specialist teachers are needed most.
Speakers will be announced in due course.
** Note: This event will take place in the conference secure zone. To access the secure zone you will need to obtain a pass directly from the Labour Party.**
