Government teacher recruitment initiatives questioned

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has heard evidence from a number of educational authorities about concerns regarding the value for money of the the government’s teacher recruitment methods.

The news follows a report released from the National Audit Office (NAO) which outlined areas where the government was missing recruitment targets. In the sessions, Meg Hillier, chair of the PAC, discussed her worries with Chris Wormald, the Department for Education’s (DfE) permanent secretary, and Sinead O’Sullivan, the director of programme delivery at the National College for Teaching & Leadership (NCTL).

MPs said they wanted to see more evidence regarding the effectiveness of bursaries, where up to £30,000 is offered to some trainees. They said it was troubling that trainees which did not return to the classroom at the end of their training did not have to pay back the money. The DfE has put forward £167 million to cover training bursaries.

Stephen Phillips, MP for Sleaford & North Hykeham, said: “What is stopping a trainee taking the money and then going into another profession or leaving the country?”

Other MPs, namely Labour MP Caroline Flint, voiced concerns about teachers who were teaching a subject in which they were not specialists, particularly after an NAO study reported that 12,600 hours of physics teaching was carried out by non-specialist teachers.

Flint said: “Given this government’s championing of good subject discipline, it is concerning that there seems to be this creeping use of teachers who are not qualified in a subject teaching classes, as the department continues to miss its targets.”

O’Sullivan contended that the NCTL were monitoring and comparing data from teacher trainees in 2013-14 and 2014-15 to examine what kind of progress had been made. Wormald also added that School Direct would help to plug local need for teachers, after MPs asked him about how regional and local representations were sometimes not a true reflection of the national landscape.

Wormald said: “On the current quality of data we cannot easily map local markets, we are a long way from that, but that is why we think the school-led approach to teacher training is a good thing as the local leaders can react to certain circumstances."