Opinion: Workforce

Recruitment: Our scramble for youth is missing the talent

Changes in population and the labour market mean the government’s scramble for young recruits is no longer a workable strategy, writes Katie Waldegrave

Changes in population and the labour market mean the government’s scramble for young recruits is no longer a workable strategy, writes Katie Waldegrave

15 Oct 2022, 5:00

What has struck me most in the five years since Now Teach launched is that while the sector struggles with staffing and recruitment, policy orthodoxies still dictate a scramble for young graduates. It’s a strategy that neglects a rich, untapped seam of eager talent and has left schools exposed.

One in ten teachers are now new starters, and nearly a quarter leave within five years. But if we spent a little more time considering who to attract to the profession as well as how to retain, we could boost quantity and quality.

Much has happened since 2017 to distort the traditional streams into ITT. Long-term demographic patterns, which were always coming our way, mean we now have fewer 22-year-olds than any time since the late 1990s just as student numbers are creating a secondary school bulge. Meanwhile, keen to improve gender ratios, employers are increasingly targeting female graduates – the historic mainstay of teaching recruitment.

Right when we need more new teachers, the pool of potential recruits is shrinking. Competition is stiff. New graduates can choose remote working over the big city and earn private sector salaries that saw rises of 5.9 per cent in the three months to June.

An opportunity to recruit

As working lives lengthen, older people are our only growing natural resource. A focused approach to recruiting from new markets may yield better outcomes.

Five years ago, we enrolled 45 career changers with an average age of 55 and 1,500 years of collective work experience onto our initial teacher training (ITT) programme. Since then, we have helped 650 people with all sorts of backgrounds to bring their vast and varied experiences to secondary schools.

And demand is growing. Compared to before the pandemic, secondary ITT applications to mid-July this year had declined by 10 per cent. Over the same period, Now Teach’s applications from prospective career changers have climbed by 49 per cent. Our latest estimates also show, year-on-year, we have made 80 per cent more offers to would-be teachers in comparison to a nine per cent national decline.

This strategy neglects talent and leaves schools exposed

While older recruits are currently fewer in number, the increase in enthusiasm is clear. According to the government’s own figures, the over-40s are the sole age group to increase their ITT footprint in classrooms this year. 

An ‘ageless’ approach could also help equalise long-standing inequalities in the education system such as gender, age, and ethnicity. Nearly one-third of Now Teach’s teachers are from an ethnic minority versus one in seven nationally, and almost half are men compared to 35 per cent nationally.

On quality, older teachers offer a diversity of experience and a wealth of skills, networks and outlook which schools (and all workplaces) need. Their professional lives can enrich subjects and support career development for young people making important decisions about qualifications and training.

A challenge to retain

But quitting one profession for another is challenging, and maintaining bursaries at a reasonable rate is crucial for this cohort. Finance is a particular barrier for those with children and mortgages. Withdrawals citing financial reasons doubled for us year-on-year.

Older recruits must also feel confident that pay progression once they have qualified is a fair reflection of their worth, not maintained by diverting resources from students.

Most important of all, people need to see and understand that teaching is a role which is compatible with a healthy work/life balance and a supportive environment. Flexible working is important to a significant proportion of career changers, and support networks play a huge role in helping them become the real thing. Hardwiring professional peer and pastoral systems into the recruitment and retention process for all teachers would smooth out these difficulties.

Education must compete in the new working world. That means shifting the lens to capitalise on a different talent pool by ensuring teaching is attractive to people at various life stages and with different motivations, responsibilities, and finances to the average 22-year-old.

If we can accomplish this, we will be far better placed to attract and retain talent of all ages and backgrounds, with a broad range of benefits for all young people.

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2 Comments

  1. Steven Turner

    I was a career changer in my early 50’s in 2003. I am now retired. I was prepared for the lower salary but what I was not prepared for was the total dismissal of my previous experience as a senior manager in industry by the SLT in the schools I worked in. Nor was my years of man management training was considered of value to the SLT who ruled their school with a rod of iron with no alternative being considered. It was this rather than the salary that almost made me quit teaching in my years. Until this “we know best” attitude of SLT to changes in schools it will be difficult to retain good career changes who want to bring the benefits of their long careers to their new roles.

  2. I was a career changer in my early forties, with a similar experience to Steven. I had to join a Rudolf Steiner school to find one that cares about both the breadth and depth of learning I could offer, rather than one that cares mainly about results.

    Governments tend to believe that standards are raised by compliance rather than competence, leading to controlling everything from the top. This breaks two principles:
    1. Teaching will no longer be a profession (see definitions) – with teachers no longer authorities of their own practice;
    2. Compliance with a one-size-fits-all approach will not develop competence. Why would it? Where is the evidence? People are individuals in local schools, with individual and local needs.