Teacher Shortages (Hansard, 17 October 2000)

§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone)
My Lords, in January there were more teachers in maintained schools in England than at any time for a decade. Over 99 per cent of posts were filled. The latest evidence suggests that this remains the position. New funding is helping to maintain recruitment. In this financial year this includes £70 million to encourage more graduates to train as teachers by means of the training salaries, £4 million to improve teacher recruitment in London, and encouraging trained teachers to return to the profession.

§ Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her reply and am glad that she has stressed that there has been an increase in the number of teachers, but they are mainly in primary schools, not in secondary schools. Is she aware of the fact that the average size of class in secondary schools has increased over the past three years; and that in a number of subjects, particularly mathematics and science, there is an acute shortage of teachers and many classes are being taught by non-specialists? Is she further aware that teacher training colleges for secondary school posts are 1,500 people short of their targets for this year? Is the Minister conscious of the real crisis in a number of these areas? Does she feel that the department is doing enough to meet that crisis?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I think it is a little exaggerated to describe the overall national picture as a "crisis". The Government accept that there are some parts of the country—London is the most notable example—where there are severe shortages, particularly in certain subjects in secondary schools. As a result of the Government's intervention, there has been a big increase this year in the number of teachers applying to work in secondary schools in the shortage subjects just mentioned—mathematics and science—and an even bigger increase in the number of both young and mature people coming forward to teach technology where there was also a serious shortage.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the Minister has ignored the number of schools now operating a four-day week, depriving children of 20 per cent of their education. I wonder why the noble Baroness made no reference to that.
Can the noble Baroness comment on the massive recruitment programme in other countries for teachers for our secondary schools? What is being done to ensure that such teachers are entirely familiar with the structure of education in this country, with the national curriculum and with the particular schools in which they will work? What is the formal arrangement for accepting them and for ensuring their competence in the classrooms of our secondary schools?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, only two schools are now teaching a four-day week, so it is important that we do not exaggerate the number. This compares quite favourably with the very large number of schools in the 1980s, especially in London, that were teaching 882 a one and two-day week with some pupils being kept out of school for several weeks in a row. As soon as the Government heard about those two schools, they took action to intervene. We asked the Teacher Training Agency to provide additional support and worked with the LEAs to do the same. Perhaps it will reassure the noble Baroness to know that substantial numbers of teachers are now applying to teach in those schools and that the interviewing process is about to begin.
On the second question and overseas-trained teachers, it is important that where overseas-trained teachers are recruited they are properly prepared to work in our classrooms. There is a programme under way to ensure that that happens.

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
My Lords, the Government are to be congratulated on the new incentive payment of £6,000 that I am sure will be successful in enticing youngsters into the teaching profession. Will the Government keep this under review? It may be necessary to increase that payment at some time, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. Is the Minister aware of the very warm welcome given to the 20,000 classroom assistants, a post for which the teaching profession has been asking for many years? However, will the Government think again about performance-related pay? Some of us think that it may cause some kind of disruption, which certainly would not help recruitment to the teaching profession.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I answer the last point first. The Government believe that performance-related pay will reward really high quality teachers in the classroom and will be beneficial to teacher supply in that it will keep more people in the profession and attract good graduates.
I am grateful to my noble friend for the welcome he has given to the increasing number of classroom assistants. Clearly, that is very important from the point of view of support to teachers. Classroom assistants facilitate their job and make it easier.
The Government will keep the training salaries under review. Although it is very early to assess their impact, there has been a very substantial increase in the number of applications as a result of the introduction of this change.

§ Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, will the Government address the haemorrhaging of experienced teachers from the profession and the very worrying number of PGCE students who, despite the training salary, are leaving the course before the end?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, the training salary was introduced only this year so I think it is rather early for the noble Baroness to suggest that people are leaving courses; they have been running for only two or three weeks. But the noble Baroness may have information that I do not have.
883 On the wastage of teachers from the profession, it is important to do all that we can to try to retain teachers. Again, the statistics are good. In the latest year for which we have the figures—1998–99—there was a fall of 1.6 per cent in the number leaving the profession. It is normally between six and eight per cent, so that is a substantial drop.