THE government wants a “mums’ army” of teachers to march back into the country’s classrooms to help tackle a worsening recruitment crisis.
Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, is expected today to outline details of mentoring and support programmes designed to encourage women back into schools, even if it is only part-time.
Figures last week revealed that an average of 6,000 women, aged 30 to 39, left the teaching profession each year between 2008 and 2012.
Addressing the problem yesterday at the annual conference of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) , Morgan said: “ Let me level with you. We have a growing economy and leading employers intending to recruit 7.5% more graduates than last year from a smaller overall graduate pool, so even with all other things being equal we would face a challenge.”
Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the ASCL, said he was expecting Morgan to make it easier for teachers to organise job shares and part-time work.
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“This is a very helpful intervention but it can only be one strand of an overall programme to tackle the recruitment crisis,” he said.
The ASCL suggested that young people would be attracted to the profession if tuition fee loans for teachers were written off provided they remained in the classroom for a decade.
According to a recent survey, 84% of ASCL members said teacher shortages were having a detrimental effect on the education they could provide and 70% had been forced to use supply agency staff.
In her speech yesterday Morgan said more action was needed to tackle areas of underperformance such as coastal towns and some rural areas. She said: “ Delivering educational excellence everywhere means ending the scandalous demography of destiny which has no place in 21st-century Britain.”