Category Archives: Uncategorized

Are new graduate entrants to teaching still predominantly young, white and female?

Posted on by
5

In the Summer of 1996, I contributed an article to a special edition of Education Review – produced by the NUT’s (now the NEU) Education and Equal Opportunities Unit – this special issue was entitled ‘reasserting equal opportunities’ and my contribution was on the issue of equal opportunities in teacher training. I concluded that article by asking the question; “young, white and female, is this the picture of the average new entrant to the profession?” (Howson, 1996)

How much has changed since then? Is that picture of the new entrant still recognisable today? This question is especially interesting, as during the intervening two decades the undergraduate route into teaching has reduced almost to nothing for secondary trainees, and by a considerable margin for those wanting to train as a primary school teacher. At the same time, the various employment-based routes such as FastTrack and the GTP (graduate Teacher Programme) have come and gone, although Teach First has stayed the course and wasn’t in existence in the 1990s. School Direct as well as apprenticeships have appeared on the scene.

My original article used data from the middle of a recruitment cycle. For this comparative piece, I have chosen to look at either end of cycle data, or DfE data about the workforce, where comparable data about trainees no longer exists in the public domain.

The late 1990s were a period similar to 2019 with teacher training providers struggling to fill all the targets for training places set them by the then Teacher Training Agency (TTA) on behalf of the government’s Department for Education and Employment, as the DfE was then known. As I wrote in the 1996 article:

“Teacher Training is entering a period of rapid growth…. The challenge may be just to fill as many places as possible if graduate recruitment in the wider labour market remains buoyant. “ Howson, 1996, 36)

Such a comment could also easily have been made about the 2018/19 recruitment round.

The first criteria considered in the original article was that of the age of applicants. In 1997, as now, UCAS was responsible for managing the application process for graduate trainees into teaching. In those days it was through the Graduate Teacher Training Registry (GTTR), part of the UCAS Small Systems Department.  These days, the process is no longer handled by a separate department with its own Board and structure, but is part of the main UCAS system.

Although different age bands are now used for age groupings it is possible to consider three groups of applicants by age; those in their 20s, 30s, and 40 and above.

Table1: Percentage of Applicants to Postgraduate Teacher Training by Gender

1997 2019 Difference 2019 on 1997
Male Female Male Female Male Female
20s 23 52 21 47 -2 -5
30s 7 11 6 12 -1 1
40+ 2 5 5 9 3 4
Total 32 68 32 68 0 0

Source: GTTR Annual Report 1997 and UCAS Monthly data for September 2019 Report A

Interestingly, the profile of applicants is now older than it was in 1997. There has been a reduction in the share of applicants in their 20s, and an increase in the share of older applicants in their 40s or 50s. However, the change in profile might have been expect to have been in the other direction with the loss of many undergraduate training places meaning young would-be teachers might have been expected to seek a training place on graduation..

Nevertheless, because there are more applicants overall in 2019 than in 1997, there were more actual applicants from these younger age groups in 2018/19, but not enough to increase their share of the overall total of applicants.

There were some 9,159 applicants in the 20-22 age bracket out of a total of 33,612 applicants in 1997, but by 2019, the number had increased to 10.960 out of the total of 40,540 applicants.

How likely were applicants of different ages to be offered a place on a course?

In the 1997 group, there was a clear association of offers of a training place with the age group of the applicant

Table 2: Percentage of Age Groupings Offered a Place on a Postgraduate Teaching Course in 1997

Age-grouping Offers Applicants % offers
20-22 5857 9159 64%
23-24 4150 7071 59%
25-26 2599 4499 58%
27-28 1397 2576 54%
29-30 964 1865 52%
31-35 1807 3489 52%
36-40 1352 2598 52%
41-45 766 1480 52%
46-50 308 655 47%
50+ 97 155 63%
Total 19297 33547 58%

Source: GTTR Annual Report 1997

Altogether, around two thirds of the youngest and new graduates were offered a place compared with less than half of graduates in the 46-50 age-grouping. The percentage for the very small number of those over 50 seeking to train as a teacher suggests that many may have sought pre-selection before submitting a formal application to train.

Interestingly, by 2019, the same pattern of a decline in the percentage of applicants made an offer by increasing age group still held good. However   the percentage of applicants being made an offer was much higher, especially among the older age-groupings. For instance, although there was only a 14% increase in the percentage of the youngest group made an offer, the increase for those in their late 20s was around the 20% mark. However, the increase for applicants in their 40s was less at between 8-13%.

Table 3: Percentage of Age Groupings Offered a Place on a Postgraduate Teaching Course in 2019

Age -Grouping Offers total % offers
21 4240 5430 78%
22 4180 5530 76%
23 3320 4370 76%
24 2420 3280 74%
25-29 6600 9150 72%
30-39 4420 6950 64%
40+ 3470 5830 60%
Total 28650 40540 71%

Source: UCAS Monthly data for September 2019 Report A (Based upon total of applicants Placed; Conditionally Placed or Holding an offer – By September only 120 applicants were still holding an offer)

The changes in approaches to the teacher training landscape between 1997 and 2019, including the reduction of undergraduate places in both primary and secondary courses and the shift post-2010 to a more overtly school-led system, does not significantly seem to have altered the attitude to older applicants.

The case can be made that all age-groupings seem to have benefited from the change, but this would be to ignore the increase in demand for teachers in the period leading up to 2019, as the school population increased once again, firstly in the primary sector and more recently in the lower secondary years.

Sadly, it isn’t possible to identify trends in individual subjects at this point in time because UCAS no longer publishes a breakdown of applicants by subject, as was the case in 1997. The statistics are available for ‘applications’, but not for applicants, even at the macro level of the primary and secondary sectors. However, they are available for the regional level; a piece of data not provided in 1997.

Table 4: Percentage of Applicants Offered a Place 2019

Region Offers Total % Offers
North East 1540 2060 75%
Yorkshire & The Humber 3090 4160 74%
East Midlands 2370 3250 73%
West Midlands 3400 4700 72%
South West 2520 3500 72%
East of England 2950 4100 72%
South East 4050 5640 72%
North West 3730 5520 68%
London 4820 7630 63%
Total 28470 40560 70%

Source: UCAS Monthly data for September 2019 Report A (Based upon total of applicants Placed; Conditionally Placed or Holding an offer – By September only 120 applicants were still holding an offer)

This is not a precise measure, because it depends upon a number of different variables, including the pattern of applications across the year and the available number of different places in each secondary subject and in the primary sector there were to be filled in each region. However, since most secondary subjects did not have recruitment controls in places during the 2018/19 recruitment round, the latter concern may be less important as a factor than the former.

It is worth noting that London, the region with the greatest demand for new teachers from both the state and private sector schools, had the lowest offer ratio to applicants of any region in the country. By way of contrast, the North East, where vacancies are probably at much lower levels, had the highest percentage of applicants offered a place. One reason for this may be that the graduate labour market in London is much better developed than in the North East. As a result, applicants to teaching may be of a higher quality in the North East than in London, where there are more opportunities for new graduates to secure work. More applicants in the North East may also apply earlier when courses still have vacancies. However, this has to be just speculation.

The third aspect of the original article dealt with the race of applicants to teacher training. In 1997, UCAS produced excellent data about applicants and their declared ethnic backgrounds. In the 2018/19 monthly data from UCAS there is no information about this aspect of applicants. In some ways this is understandable, since the population is much more complex in nature now than it was even 20 years ago. There are more graduates that have family backgrounds that would lead them to identify as of more than one grouping. However, this lack of regular data does mean that it isn’t easily possible to determine whether all applicants are treated equally.

In the 1996 article, I wrote that:

“It is clear that members of some ethnic groups are less likely to find places on PGCE courses than white applicants.” I added that “These figures are alarming” and that “If graduates with appropriate degrees are being denied places on teacher training courses in such numbers, much more needs to be known about the reasons why.” During the period 2008-2011, I was asked to conduct two, unpublished, studies for the government agency responsible for training teachers (Howson, 2008, 2011). Sadly, the conclusion of both studies was that little had changed in this respect.

Fortunately, it seems as if more graduates form ethnic minority groups are now entering teaching. Data from the government’s annual census of teacher training reveals that between 2014/15 and 2018/19 the percentage of trainees from a minority ethnic group increased from 13% to 19% of the total cohort.

Table 5: Minority Ethnic Groups as a Percentage of Postgraduate Trainees

Postgraduate new entrants Postgraduate percentages
Trainee Cohort Total Minority ethnic group Non-minority ethnic group  Minority ethnic group Non-minority ethnic group
2014/15 24893 3178 21715 13% 87%
2015/16 26957 3873 23084 14% 86%
2016/17 25733 3753 21980 15% 85%
2017/18 26401 4113 22288 16% 84%
2018/19 27742 4917 22825 18% 82%
2019/20p 27675 5168 22507 19% 81%

Source: DfE Initial Teacher Training Censuses

In numeric terms, this mean an increase of some 2,000 trainees from ethnic minority backgrounds during this period.

Although UCAS no longer provides in-year data about ethnicity of applicants, there is some data in their end of year reporting about the level of acceptances for different ethnic groups.

In the 1996 article, there was a Table showing the percentage of unplaced applicants to PGCE courses by ethnic groups in the three recruitment rounds from 1993 to 1995. What is striking about both that table, and the table below for the four years between 2014-2017 that presents the data on the percentages of ethnic groups accepted rather than unplaced, is that in both of the tables, graduates from the Black ethnic group fare less well than do White or Asian applicants. Indeed, the overwhelmingly large White group of applicants had the lowest percentage of unplaced applicants in the 1990s, and the highest rate of placed applicants in the four years from 2014-2017.

In the original article I noted that “39% of the Black Caribbean group [of applicants] accepted were offered places at three of the 85 institutions that received applications form members of this ethnic group. Thirty-nine out of the 85 institutions accepted none of the applicants from this group that applied to them.” Although we no longer have the fine grain detail of sub-groups within this ethnic grouping, nothing seems to have significantly changed during the intervening period.

Table 6: Percentage Rate of Acceptances for Postgraduate trainee Teachers

2014 2015 2016 2017
Asian 39 47 44 48
Black 27 34 30 35
Mixed 49 56 51 55
White 56 64 61 64
Other 31 38 37 39
Unknown 46 53 48 52

Source: UCAS End of Cycle reports.

Using the data from the government performance tables for postgraduate trainees, it seems that a smaller percentage of trainees from ethnic minorities received QTS at the standard time when compared to those from the non-minority community, with the percentages of those trainees both not awarded or not yet completing being greater for the trainees from the minority ethnic groups.

Table 7: Success of Postgraduate Trainee Teachers by Ethnicity

2017/18   Trainees Percentage awarded QTS Percentage yet to complete Percentage not awarded QTS Teaching in a state school Percentage of those awarded QTS teaching in a state school
Ethnicity Minority 4,311 88% 6% 6%  3,014 80%
Non-minority 22,861 92% 3% 4%  17,022 81%
Unknown 706 90% 4% 6%  503 79%

Source: DfE database of trainee teachers and providers and school Workforce Census

However, the percentage reported as working in a state school was similar at 80% for ethnic minority trainees and 81% for non-ethnic minority trainees. As there are no data for trainees working in either the independent sector or further education institutions including most Sixth Form Colleges, it isn’t clear whether the overall percentage in teaching is the same of whether or not there is a greater difference?

Conclusion

So what has changed in the profile of graduates training to be a teacher during the twenty years or so between 1997 and 2019? The percentage of trainees from minority ethnic groups within the cohort has increased. However we know their chances of becoming a teacher are still lower than for applicants from the large group of applicants classified as White as their ethnic group..

The pool of trainees is still overwhelmingly female, although there has been a shift in the age profile towards older trainees. This last change has implications, both good and more challenging, for the profile of the teaching profession. Career changers may be more likely to remain in teaching for the rest of their working lives than some young new graduates with little or no experience of the world of work. However, older trainees may reduce the possible pool of new school leaders unless those making appointments are prepared to offer leadership positions to older candidates.

However, all this may be of little more than academic interest in the present situation of a pandemic. How fast the graduate labour market, recovers, especially in London, will be a key determination of how the teacher labour market performs over the next few years and whether the gender, age and ethnic profile of those applying and accepted to become trainee teachers alters from its current composition.

Nevertheless, there are issues, not least around the ability of those graduates from some ethnic groups to access teaching as a career. There is also the continued under-representation of men seeking to join the teaching profession, but they are then over-represented in the leadership roles within education. How the government addresses the issue of equal opportunities in teaching as a profession also continues to be a matter of concern.

John Howson

Oxford April 2020

Correspondence to: johnohowson@gmail.com

Bibliography

DfE (2018) Database of trainee teachers. Accessed on 7th April 2020 at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-performance-profiles-2017-to-2018

DfE (2018) School Workforce Census.  Accessed on 7th April 2020 at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2018

Howson, J. (1996). Equal opportunities and initial teacher training. In Education Review Volume 10, Number 1. London: NUT.

GTTR (Graduate Teacher Training Registry). (1997) Annual Report Cheltenham: UCAS.

UCAS (2018). End of cycle data. Author’s private collection.

UCAS (2019). September 2019 Monthly Report A & B of applicants and applications to courses. Author’s private collection

Covid-19

Posted on by
2

Someone has suggested that I put these two poems on my blog. They are both somewhat downbeat, or even melancholy, as befits the mood when writing them. As this blog is now more irregular in its offerings, I feel able to do so.

Please keep safe and well and my thanks to everyone helping in whatever way to fight this pandemic.

Covid-19

How ironic that

We looked at never ending rain

Through sullen windows.

Just to view the sun through self-same panes

 

For, now most must not do more

Than look; don’t touch.

An almost silent spring.

Where hidden sounds emerge.

 

Was that a woodpecker’s drill?

Unheard before the clamour

Of our streets had died away

To stillness and serenity.

 

Social media replaces

Print, and nails the coffin

Of the daily newspaper

We have loved?

 

What words will disappear, so

Bandwith, router, social distance

Can appear in dictionaries?

Not curfew, coroner, shielding

Now brought back to use.

 

We fumble forward

Turning freedom on its head.

Still unwilling to surrender

Liberty for lockdown.

 

Where will we go?

We do not know.

The end from this beginning

Changes every day.

 

27th March 2020

Fears remain the same

The casual swipe of death

Pierces life’s sunset pattern.

Breaking comfort and order

Through sudden phone or text

 

We wish we’d never answered.

Such modern telegrams

Of isolated death.

Apart from loved ones.

 

Missing as former warriors

Lost in battlefields.

Lovers die surrounded

As they were, by

 

Acquaintances, but

Rarely family or friends.

This war, building daily,

To reflect the biggest battle yet.

 

No funeral for these fallen,

Taken ahead of time.

Buried with scant ceremony,

To await a future remembrance.

 

Private grief, without even

Neighbours solace offered.

But, by phone or email;

Too hard to read.

 

What will time heal?

As yet, we do not know.

But, hope eternal springs,

From life’s indomitable spirit.

 

 

COVID-19 PM’s Suez?

Posted on by
3

How a Prime minister deals with a crisis sometimes seals their fate. Chamberlain did not survive the switch from phony war to Blitzkrieg, and Eden paid for the shambles of Suez with his job. How our current Prime Minister handles the next few weeks will seal his fate.  I never thought I would be writing these lines, especially in a situation where the current government has such a large majority. But even a large majority cannot protect someone in Number 10 Downing Street if both the opposition and significant parts of his own Party want a change of leadership.

We haven’t reached that state yet. But, just looking at how the government has handled the school situation in England this week leaves me wondering, as a political opponent, how much more his own Party will take? Why was the list of key workers not available on Wednesday? What does the following mean:

‘If your school is closed then please contact your local authority, who will seek to redirect you to a local school in your area that your child, or children, can attend.’

How have local authorities been briefed to handle such requests from parents, and if they cannot, it is obvious where the blame will rest.

Fortunately it isn’t as bad for education as it is in some other industries. Who is going to offer accommodation to live-in workers in the hospitality industry summarily dismissed, such as the waiter interviewed on the today Programme this morning. Will local authorities be able to requisition hotels as hostels for the duration of the current crisis?

In 1939 the country managed a mass evacuation of children from our cities under a Conservative Government. Does the civil service have the mentality to handle arrangements on such a scale today? After decades of a philosophy of private choice rather than public good, it may need a rethink, and quickly.

As a Liberal I celebrate choice, and especially choice in my personal life, but I also recognise the need for fairness in society as a whole. So, looking at the quote from government, does this mean that either local authorities just wait to be informed which schools are open and pass on the message to parents or that they play an active role in managing the situation, for the fairness of all, especially in rural areas and where there are smaller schools? Does ‘seek to’ mean a permissive role or a ‘duty of care’?

Should we also be seeking to make use of these technologically savvy young sixth formers now excluded from school to help with the national voluntary effort, especially if it turns out that healthy young people are less likely to catch a debilitating version of the virus? Perhaps some can help with school-based childcare to relieve adults that have to go into isolation. But, any such scheme would need planning and that’s something modern governments in Britain have found difficult to do effectively.

Lost words

Posted on by
Reply

Something to think about if you have children at home: are there other lost words they can find and both illustrate and create a ‘spell’ for?

The Lost Words: A Spell Book

by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris
published by Hamish Hamilton at Penguin – UK

The book began as a response to the removal of everyday nature words – among them “acorn”, “bluebell”, “kingfisher” and “wren” – from a widely used children’s dictionary, because those words were not being used enough by children to merit inclusion. But The Lost Words then grew to become a much broader protest at the loss of the natural world around us, as well as a celebration of the creatures and plants with which we share our lives, in all their wonderful, characterful glory.”

The Lost Words is a ‘book of spells’ that seeks to conjure back the near-lost magic and strangeness of the nature that surrounds us. It transcends age barriers inspiring children and moving adults with its wide appeal. It is a large hardback book – over A4 in size, and the gold lettering and eye catching ’charm’ of Goldfinches on the front cover give a hint of the treasures that lie within. Each lost word is conjured back to importance through Robert’s powerful spells. They are called ‘spells’ rather than poems as they are designed to be spoken (or sung!) out loud in order to summon back these words and creatures into our hearts. Robert explains: “We’ve got more than 50% of species in decline. And names, good names, well used can help us see and they help us care. We find it hard to love what we cannot give a name to. And what we do not love we will not save.”

Each acrostic spell has 3 accompanying artworks by Jackie Morris– a glorious triptych of watercolour painting – firstly a clever but solemn display of the creature or plant’s absence from our world, then the spell itself accompanied by an ‘icon-esque’ self portrait of the central character surrounded with sumptuous gold leaf, and finally the creature or plant is depicted embedded in its natural habitat.

Since the Lost Words’ publication in October 2017, this book has had a transformative effect on all who have come in contact with it. Described as a ‘cultural phenomenon’ in the Guardian, it has become a huge bestseller, has taken root in thousands of schools across Britain, been widely acclaimed as an instant classic, won numerous prizes, and inspired many creative thinkers, young and old. It was shortlisted in 2017 as one of Britain’s favourite books of all time on the natural world (alongside titles including Henry Williamson’s famous Tarka the Otter and Gilbert White’s The Natural History of Selborne).

 

 

 

Recruiting Teachers – the cost effective option

Posted on by
Reply

I am delighted to announce that TeachVac will be adding the small number of vacancies from the DfE site that TeachVac doesn’t already carry to the TeachVac site. These vacancies are mostly either in new schools recruiting for the first time or primary schools in small MATs with a central recruitment page.

As TeachVac also includes vacancies from independent schools, this will make it the most comprehensive site for anyone interested in either applying for a teaching vacancy or interested in what is happening in the labour market for teachers.

As a result, I have written the following piece as an overview of recruitment in what remains a challenging labour market for teachers. You can sign up to Teachvac at http://www.teachvac.co.uk; it free and easy to do.

There are a number of different options for schools and academy trusts seeking to recruit teachers and school leaders. Put briefly, these are:

  • Free sites such as the DfE site and TeachVac (national coverage) and local authority job boards (local and in some cases regional coverage)
  • Traditional national paid for advertising sites such as The TES, eteach and The Guardian.
  • Local paid for advertising via local newspapers and their websites.
  • Recruitment Agencies of various types, including agencies focused on the supply teacher market.
  • Direct marketing to universities and other providers of teacher preparation courses as well as offering vacancies to teachers in schools during preparation courses.
  • School web sites, including the use of talent banking.

Each of these comes with different costs and benefits.

A single point of contact for free advertising of vacancies for teachers and school leaders has been identified by the National Audit Office; the Education Select Committee and in the 2017 Conservative Party election manifesto as the best way forward.

During 2018 and early 2019 the DfE developed and implemented such a product to operate alongside the already existing TeachVac site designed and operated by a company where Professor John Howson, a long-time authority on the labour market for teachers is the chair of the board.

The advantage of the DfE site is that it has the backing of the government. Potential disadvantages include the fact that it requires schools to upload vacancies and that it only handles vacancies from state funded schools and colleges. A minor distraction is that the site also handles non-teaching vacancies mixed in with the teaching posts. Requiring schools to upload vacancies can be both time consuming and also requires training for new staff to ensure that they can operate the system. The information is limited to that required by the site and isn’t easy to alter without informing all schools of the change.

TeachVac uses technology to collect vacancies every day from school websites and then eyeballing to verify their accuracy. The amount of information collected is greater than on the DfE web site.  A potential disadvantage of TeachVac is that it does not allow users to browse vacancies, but requires specification of a set of requirements for the vacancy sought. This approach has the advantage of also collecting data about the level of interest in specific types of vacancies in specific parts of the country. TeachVac covers both state funded and private schools so provides a one-stop shop for teachers seeking vacancies.

Both sites have the advantage of being free to use for both schools and teachers. The DfE site is subject to the need for government funding and TeachVac must fund itself.

All other approaches, save for schools own web sites and direct marketing by schools to teacher preparation courses, are subject to the profit motive and thus have a cost to schools.

The use of modern technology allows for the combination of approaches by schools, starting with the free options and allowing for the best paid-for alternative should the free option not provide an adequate response to a generated vacancy within a short period of time.

Do let me have your thoughts on how you see the future for the market? Will free sites reduce the ability of paid-for sites to attract vacancies? Will the DfE site become the default site or does it lack of breadth mean teachers will want a site offering all teaching vacancies in one place? Will recruitment agencies become the normal route for entry into the profession for newly qualified teachers and returners? Do the Local government Association and the teacher associations have a role to play in the marketing of vacancies to teachers and monitoring the labour market independent of government?

Let me know what you think?

Uncertain Times

Posted on by
2

One of the consequences of the prorogation of parliament has been the cancellation of the meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Teaching Profession that was scheduled for the 9th September. Below is the paper I would have presented to the APPG meeting. The text represents my first look at what might happen to the teacher labour market in 2020.

APPG Labour Market for Teachers: A first look at the outcome for September 2020.

In 2020, we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 1870 Education Act that brought state schooling to the whole population for the first time in our history.

The job market at the start of September 2019 is probably facing another year where the supply of teachers will not meet the demand, especially in many secondary subjects, and most notably across the South of England. The further North and West in England you move away from London, and in much of the classroom teacher market in the primary sector, there is less pressure overall on supply, but shortages in specific subjects remain, especially for January 2020 appointments.

However, the picture might change quite radically post-Brexit on 31st October. If there is a general slowdown in the world economy in the autumn and through to the start of 2020, as many economists seem to be expecting, this may be good news for schools. Recessions in the past have meant fewer teachers leaving the profession and more seeking to either train as a teacher, as other career avenues recede, or return to teaching as a secure, if not well-paid, profession. Additionally, if demand internationally for teachers from England reduces that may help retain teachers and reduce wastage rates, especially amongst teachers with 5-7 years of experience.

At present, reading the runes of teacher preparation courses starting this September that will provide the bulk of new entrants into the labour market in 2020, the picture is still one of shortages. In mid-August 135 preparation courses in London had vacancies, compared with only five in the North East of England.

As a result of this analysis, there are three possible scenarios for the teacher labour market in 2020:

Continuing shortages

Assuming no changes to the supply situation, and a cash injection into schools that is not entirely absorbed by increased salaries for the existing workforce, then the present supply crisis will continue and could intensify in some subjects and the parts of the country already most challenged by teacher shortages and increases in the secondary school population. This will make it the longest running supply crisis since the early 1970s.

A return to normal market conditions

As the supply of new entrants will be less than required to meet the demands of schools in 2020, this state of affairs is only likely to occur if both the rate of departure by the present workforce slows down and there is an increase in teachers seeking to return to work in state schools. A worsening economic and geopolitical situation, especially in the Middle East and in China might be catalysts for such an outcome, as might less that fully funded salary increase for teachers used as an incentive to help attract more recruits in the future into teaching as a career. In the short-term for 2020, any pay increase would likely attract returners in greater numbers if accompanied by improvements in workload and pupil behaviour initiatives.

More teachers than vacancies

This situation usually only occurs during a significant recession, such as that experienced ten years ago after the financial meltdown. It is extremely unlikely scenario for 2020, unless EU teachers also opt to remain teaching in England post-Brexit rather than return home, and there is a flood of returners to teaching concerned about redundancies elsewhere in the economy and a lack of other job opportunities. Such a scenario would also lead to increased applications for teacher preparation courses making it a more likely prospect for the labour market of 2021 than in 2020.

 

 

Teachers always needed in London

Posted on by
Reply

Four out of every ten teaching vacancies in England, advertised between January and the end of July this year, were placed by schools located either in London or the South East. Add in vacancies from the northern and eastern Home Counties, including Essex, Hertfordshire and schools located in a clutch of unitary local authorities and the figure for vacancies comes close to half of all teaching posts. This data come from TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk, the company where I am Chair of the Board.

By contrast, the North East and North West together account for only 12% of vacancies. This increases to 20% if the Yorkshire and The Humber Region is added into the total. Of course, these are smaller regions than London and the South East, but that doesn’t account for all of the difference.

Undoubtedly, the school population is rising faster in London and the Home Counties than elsewhere, both because of the birth rate increase a few years ago and also because of the amount of house building, especially in parts of the South East. Oxfordshire has had three new secondary schools over the past few years, with more to come. This after a period when no new secondary schools were built in the county.

Although Teach First is now a programme spread across England, its influence in London can still be seen. Schools in the Capital generally topped the list for percentage of vacancies recorded by region, but were in second place in terms of the percentage of demand for teachers of English and only in joint first place with the South East in demand for teachers of mathematics, both accounting for 19% of the national total of advertised vacancies.

Another reason demand may be high in London and the South East is the significant number of private schools located in these regions.

Interestingly, ‘business’ in is various forms was the subject where London was further ahead of the rest of the country; accounting for a third of all vacancies advertised so far in 2019. Add in the percentage for the South East and the total for the two regions is more than half the total for the whole of England.

In business, as in a range of other subjects, schools needing to recruit for vacancies that arise for January 2020 are going to find filing those vacancies something of a challenge. Regardless of the outcome of Brexit and the state of the world economy, there won’t be a reserve of newly qualified teachers still looking for work in many subjects. Languages, history and geography within the EBacc being exceptions, although even here there are likely to be local shortages, regardless of the national picture.

Recruiting returners and persuading teachers to switch schools may be the best options for schools suddenly faced with a vacancy, for whatever reason. There will be some teachers coming back from overseas and TeachVac has seen more ‘hits’ on the web site from Southern Hemisphere counties over the past few weeks. But such numbers may only be of marginal help unless there is a really deep global recession.

One option the government might consider is offering teacher preparation courses starting and ending in January as well as September. The Open University used to be very good at offering courses that graduate teachers in time to meet the needs of schools looking to fill their January vacancies.  It might be worth considering such an option again.

Both women and men needed in teaching

Posted on by
Reply

The government’s evidence to the Teachers’ Pay Review body (STRB) is a mine of useful information, as this blog has already pointed out, especially in respect of the teacher supply situation in London.

There was one other paragraph in the DfE’s evidence that caught my eye. The second half of paragraph 83 of the DfE’s evidence reads as follows;

“We have also worked with the sector to revise recruitment guidance for schools and have appointed nine Women Leading in Education (WLE) regional networks to raise the profile of women in education and to support career progression.” DfE Evidence to STRB, 2019, para 83.

This paragraph appears in the section about headteachers and other teachers in leadership positions and there is a helpful chart later in the section, which I have reproduced as the following Table.

Percentage of the workforce Female Male
Head Teachers 66 34
Deputy Head Teachers 70 30
Assistant Head Teachers 68 32
Classroom Teachers 75 25
Unqualified Teachers 69 31
All Teachers 74 26

Source: School Workforce Census 2017

The percentage of classroom teachers that are women is higher than for the three leadership grades. However, unfortunately, in their evidence, the DfE don’t further breakdown the data between the different sectors. And that breakdown may be important in understanding more about where the difference between the percentage of classroom teachers and heads is greatest, I suspect it is in the secondary sector.

Clearly, more remains to be done to achieve parity. I looked back at the first ever report of the STRB in 1992 where there is a table about the gender breakdown of the teaching profession as a whole.

Based upon what was then DES data, from the Database of Teacher Records in March 1990, the split overall in the profession was 67% female: 37% male. So, in the following 27 years, women have increased their share of the overall teacher workforce from 67% to 74%.

Interestingly, in 1990, the split among those under 25 at that time was 84% women and 16% male – (STRB 1992 1st Report Table 2). So, probably, disproportionally more of the men that were teachers in this age group in 1990 have become heads than have the women. Thus, the DfE are correct to try “to raise the profile of women in education and to support career progression.”

However, it is harder to find any comment in the DfE’s evidence this year to the STRB about the overall balance in the profession between men and women. Now what can and cannot be done by government is defined, as paragraph 83 of the evidence noted, by the Equality Act of 2010.

Promoting women’s career progression, where they are an under-represented group, is what the 2010 Act was about. Should there also be a duty to the DfE to try to even up the balance between the genders in teaching? In the past 27 years the percentage of men in the teaching force has declined by around a third from 37% to 26%. The opposite would not have passed unnoticed.

My concern about this issue, as anyone that reads this blog regularly will understand, comes from the fact that, in the past two years interest in teaching among women graduates has wavered, at best, or declined at worst. If the teaching profession loses the interest of women in any numbers, without attracting more men, then there really might be a supply crisis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teacher Shortages in the USA

Posted on by
1

The issue of teacher supply, and more specifically increases in the number of teachers quitting their jobs, featured in an article in the Wall Street Journal last week https://www.wsj.com/articles/teachers-quit-jobs-at-highest-rate-on-record-11545993052 It seems that the issue of teacher supply isn’t just a problem this side of the Atlantic, but one that has now hit the headlines in the USA. As a result, I am slightly surprised not to have seen a tweet from Donald Trump on the subject, perhaps stating that anyone can be a teacher.

A tight labor market, years of uncompetitive salary increases and a challenging job are all familiar reasons for the departure of experienced teachers cited in the article and known to those of us that study the labour market for teachers in England.

Interestingly, the Wall Street Journal didn’t mention a possible move overseas, in order to teach in an international school, as another reason teachers might be quitting. The article also didn’t mention whether there was also an issue of recruiting potential teachers into training courses in parts of the USA. However, it did raise the spectre of an increase in the number of unqualified teachers. I don’t think that the article mentioned Teach for America, one of the original alternative certification programs created during an earlier teacher supply crisis around the turn of the century. It also didn’t reflect upon whether technology might help overcome a shortage of teachers.

Education in the USA is generally a local activity managed by School Boards and largely overseen by the individual States. Some States have traditionally had good teacher planning mechanisms, such as we enjoy in England, but others have been less concerned with planning and more interested in a market-based approach.

One question, if the shortage continues and even worsens, is whether some States might go shopping for teachers overseas in order to help fill their vacancies in the same way that heads in England turn to Canada, Australia and New Zealand for potential recruits when the pipeline dries up at home.

Some US States have turned to the Caribbean countries in the past, but might they look further afield if the supply problem deteriorates further. Could we see competition between US and UK schools for the same teachers and could there even be attempts to entice UK teachers to take up work in the USA? I don’t think that is especially likely, but it is worth recalling that Michael Gove, when Education Secretary, did grant QTS to all teachers in the USA that are qualified, to allow them to teach in England without any need for further qualifications.

I will look at the agenda for this spring’s AERA Conference to see whether teacher supply is once again back on the radar of academics, as well as of journalists. I might just also delve into the archives and dust off some of the articles from conferences 20 years ago to see whether this is a case of history repeating itself or whether there is a new twist to the tale this time around.

 

Teacher Preparation data – Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

Normally, that is for most of the past twenty years, I would have commented on the data provided by UCAS about applications and acceptances to the different subjects and between primary and secondary phases on the day it has appeared.

This month I refrained from doing so that I could look further into the data provided over the past three months. For some reason there appears to have been a glitch in the data I was looking at for Report B Table 10 of the data in August. I assume this was my mistake, and the data has now been corrected in my spreadsheets to conform to the published data currently on the UCAS web site.

The mistake slightly over-estimated the number of ‘offers’ to applicants, by using the end of cycle data for 2017 rather than the actual August data. Inputting the September data revealed the discrepancy and has allowed the changes to be made retrospectively. I can now say how I think the outcome will look compared with both last year and the DfE’s estimate of need, as calculated through the Teacher Supply Model.

So, on the evidence of the total ‘Placed’, Conditional Place’ and ‘holding offer’ numbers from the UCAS data, the 2018 round for secondary subjects should be slightly better overall than 2017, with biology, English, PE, art and languages exceeding the TSM number and IT/Computer Studies and history being at the required level. This leaves Chemistry, design and technology, mathematics, music, Physics and Religious Education unlikely to meet their TSM number unless Teach First can made up the shortfall.

As hinted yesterday, it may be that potential trainees on Subject Knowledge Enhancement courses (SKE Courses) don’t become ‘Placed’ until the end of these courses, and some may be added to the ‘Placed’ totals over the summer, creating the increases seem this year.

Interestingly, in April, before the growth in applications, I prepared a table for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Teaching with a prediction for the outcome of the recruitment round in terms of meeting the TSM number. How good were my predictions?

Subject Meet 2018 TSM Meets 2018 TSM CHANGE From April prediction?
April view Sept view on meeting TSM
RE NO BELOW no
PE YES ABOVE no
Music NO BELOW no
Mathematics NO BELOW no
History ? AT  
Geography ? BELOW  
English NO ABOVE Yes
D&T NO BELOW no
Computer Studies + IT NO AT Yes
Business Studies NO BELOW no
Art NO ABOVE Yes
Languages NO ABOVE Yes
Biology YES ABOVE no
Chemistry NO BELOW no
Physics NO BELOW no

In four subjects, English, IT/Computer Studies, Art and languages, the prediction has changed for the better. In April, the situation on the humanities was unclear, but it now seems as if history might just miss the TSM number and geography certainly will, partly because the number was so high.

Physics remains the real worry, although the better situation in Biology means recruiting science teachers in 2019 may be no more of a challenge overall than it was this year. After a good year this year, mathematics teachers may be harder to find in 2019, whereas recruiting teachers of English in 2019 might be an easier proposition than it was in 2018.

However, we won’t be able to assess the full position until the ITT Census in late November when the Teach First numbers are added to the totals and it is revealed how many of those that were placed through UCAS actually made it on to courses.