What impact would the manifesto promises have on the teacher supply crisis?

The crisis of teacher recruitment and retention is a key challenge facing the Government that will take office after July’s general election. What solutions are they putting forward and are the proposed policy measures likely to solve it?

A report, published today, provides a detailed analysis of the manifesto commitments  on education to see how likely they are to be successful in addressing the shortage of specialist teachers in schools in England. The results highlight the scale of the teacher supply challenge for the next government.

Using a simulation and forecasting model developed with funding from Gatsby, the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) has been able to examine pledges and provide a quick analysis of the likely outcome of each of the major parties’ interventions on teacher recruitment and retention.

As the report shows, targeted financial incentives, particularly for teachers of shortage subjects like physics and maths and for teachers in the schools most in need can have a significant impact on the numbers in the classroom. The analysis also shows the overall effect on teacher supply of improving retention through workload reduction. We know other levers to improve retention include professional development, so getting the structure for this right and ensuring that the Early Career Framework focuses on retention will be crucial.

Click here to read the full analysis on the NFER website.