One in six teaching entrants qualified overseas, TES finds

Following publicity outlining a crisis in teacher recruitment, it has emerged that many qualified teachers from England are leaving the profession or moving abroad, due to a competitive jobs market and growing pupil numbers.

Data shows that between April 2014 and March 2015, a total of 6,179 overseas teachers had their qualifications recognised in England, allowing them to become fully qualified and work within the country’s schools.

National College for Teaching and Leadership statistics show that 16 per cent of the 38,746 awards of qualified teacher status (QTS) made in England over the same period were from overseas.

Professor John Howson, an expert on the teacher labour market and visiting senior research fellow at the University of Oxford’s department of education, said: “Clearly we don’t have enough teachers in the UK. Where we’re losing teachers who are going to work overseas, we’re beginning to suck people in from other countries where there’s a surplus of teachers.”

It is expected that the actual number of overseas teachers will be higher than the 6,179 figure as this only covers countries from the European Economic Area, as well as teachers from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US. Teachers who qualified in these areas are alloweded to receive the English QTS by registering their qualifications.

A DfE spokesperson said: “Outstanding teachers are in demand across the globe and, where schools wish to recruit from overseas, we want to ensure they are able to do so from those countries whose education standards are as high as our own.”

Read more