What Matters in Education series from the ESRC Education Research Programme.

Gemma Moss.

In the run-up to the next general election, each of the political parties is beginning to set out what they see as the key issues in education and what they would like to change. This is a good moment to review the extent to which party-political priorities reflect concerns widely shared by the general public, the practitioner community and the research community – and the role the research community might have in helping to shape that debate. Just how research, policy and practice can best interact are live questions for the social sciences. (more…)

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Gemma Moss and Becky Taylor.

The school workforce crisis

Making teaching an attractive career matters, most obviously to schools and their immediate communities, but also to those preparing the next generation of teachers, to researchers trying to throw light on where things have gone wrong, and with policymakers, looking for solutions.

Solving this problem is urgent. NFER’s 2023 Teacher Labour Market report shows just how much the teacher recruitment and retention challenge in England has intensified since the Covid-19 pandemic. Teacher vacancies posted by schools are up 93% compared to a similar point in 2019. The DfE’s recruitment targets for ITE are not being met. Staffing challenges are particularly acute in schools working with our most disadvantaged communities. All this has led the Commons Education Select Committee to launch its own inquiry into what can be done to improve the school workforce situation. (more…)