Teacher Shortage Crisis

Enki

Read the link in the first post - the system is quite unable to make a balanced assessment of each and every case so just goes for a blanket "<£35,000 and you're out!" approach.

Pecker

Morning Squiffy.  One thing I've learned is to look out for slight of hand tricks like the response in that article.

- There's a teacher shortage with lots of unfilled places!
- Ah, but there are more teachers than ever before.

It initially looks like it answers the question, but you don't have to think too long to realise it doesn't.

First thing to note is that it implicitly admits that there's a problem. It doesn't say "Your figures are wrong, there's no shortage", which it surely would if that were the case.

Secondly, it doesn't matter how many teachers there are, except in relation to the number of posts we need.  There aren't enough, and it's getting worse every year.

Schools are having a boom in numbers due to increase in birth rates a few years ago.  The government know this, it's why we have a census every 10 years, among other things.

It is the job of government to ensure there are enough qualified teachers. Government controls terms and conditions, training places, and monitors numbers.  It is their job to amend these to ensure there are enough quality staff in our schools, and they've failed.

In addition, this is the inevitable end product of Gove and OFSTED ensuring we woke up almost daily to news stories about how teachers were all crap.

Steve W

Pecker

Troops to Teacher's program being fine example.
Ineed it head scratching when you compare.

The trouble with UK teaching there is less and less morale purpose from Government and Department of Education and its being replaced by materialistic directions. Finland one of the best educators (PISA) see the teacher to be, highly respected, highly trained and finally, but first put the hard hats on, take a deep breath, take a seat, hide away the pension pots, best of all in Finland, its free to train as a teacher. Morally and culturally being a teacher should be something to be, after all the painful in it together Austerity is about the next the generation, innit!

Pecker

Inevitable end product?  Sorry Steve but I disagree.

This has a lot of parallels with the 'nurse shortage' that was discussed in the junior doctors threads.

People implying that nurse numbers are down due to government policies.  And we have the same thing here.

I agree it's a problem if staff numbers aren't keeping up with demand.  But the narrative around the problem with staff numbers not keeping up with demand is very different to a narrative based on implying staff numbers are down due to government policies.

Nurse and teacher numbers are up since this government came to power.

Not to gloss over that there are problems in both sectors, but I'll say again - a problem caused by demand going up is very different to a problem caused by staff leaving en masse.

Cliff

You are making a bit of a leap there.

Someone has made the decision to apply a blanket rule.  In big organisations you always get this kind of issue where someone sets a rule and everyone applies it even if they know it is going to cause a problem.

If the same someone made a decision to apply an exemption for teachers it could be done and the system could handle it.

Pecker

Tediously funny that thread, typical wabble babble, playing on the varying interpretations that NHS, Department of Health and the wider public have of the nurse definition.

Cliff

What I can say is that, as a teacher, I work with teachers, both at my own school and others.  And morale-sapping government pronouncements is most definitely part of the problem.

Other reasons given here:

Five Reasons For the UK's Worst-Ever Teacher Shortage

Steve W

Ed Selley

By the way, point 5 in that article does indeed point to the final piece in the jigsaw for this perfect storm.

School budgets are not just being cut, but savaged.

The truth is, even if there were enough teachers, schools might struggle to afford them:

New funding formula to result in 'truly scary 15 per cent budget cuts'

Steve W

Pecker

Perhaps it could, but it hasn't been.

But even then, it leaves the question.  Why do we have a graduate profession where salaries are so low (compared to other graduate professions) that they have to artificially reduce the legal 'minimum immigrant salary' limit to import teachers from other countries.

Shouldn't we be paying teachers enough that this isn't necessary, if we want the best possible education system?

Steve W

Pecker

And I'm sure you can provide the evidence that the tories have redefined the definition of a nurse in order to boost the numbers?

Or are you just making the assumption that tories are bad so if they say nurse numbers are up they must be lying?