12 March 2001

Education and Employment Secretary David Blunkett today announced that immediate recruitment and retention would be key to the success of the new £200m package announced in last week's Budget.

The biggest single element of this package will go towards a new Teacher Recruitment and Retention Fund. The Fund will be worth £35m in 2001-2 and at least as much in 2002-3. It will be targeted on schools in high cost or challenging areas, enabling headteachers to develop solutions such as: housing subsidies, childcare support, or travel costs, or make additional salary payments to improve recruitment and retention.

Mr Blunkett said that the package came on top of a range of measures since 1998, including pay rises of £3,000 for experienced teachers with performance pay this year, the recruitment of 2,300 more trainees in 2000-01 (the first rise since 1992) and a 19 per cent increase in graduate applications for training in the Autumn. These changes had been made possible by the £500 per pupil real terms increase in spending since 1997, which has meant that schools had been able to appoint more classroom assistants, achieve lower primary class sizes and have received extra help with discipline and more support for professional development.

The programme of teacher recruitment and retention measures is additional to the £200 million a year direct payments to schools and include:

 570 extra places a year for mature career-changers to train in schools on the Graduate Teacher Programme. This will take the total number of places available to 2,250 a year;

 extension of the existing £4,000 Golden Hello scheme for shortage subjects to English;

 funding for 500 new places on refresher courses for returners to teaching, including help with childcare;
 a "welcome back" bonus for qualified teachers who have been out of teaching for more than a year and return to the profession between Easter and Christmas.

Mr Blunkett said:

"We are turning the corner on a decade of under-recruitment to teaching. With recruitment up this year and applications up 19 per cent for next year it is clear that graduates are increasingly seeing teaching as an attractive career choice. But some schools still have unfilled vacancies because of past under-recruitment.

"Today's package addresses two specific issues to help them. The first is how we do more to keep good teachers, particularly in high cost areas.

"Schools and Local Education Authorities have now got much more freedom to offer incentives to attract new teachers and encourage existing teachers to stay. The new package announced today will allow them to make best use of it.

"The money can be used, for example, to offer additional salary payments or to help with housing or childcare costs or to support travel costs for those travelling further than normal. Essentially these are decisions for schools, working with education authorities and we will target resources on areas with particular problems.

"The second challenge is how we help headteachers overcome immediate problems with finding suitable staff. There are many people who have temporarily left teaching for a few years to bring up children or to pursue other careers or other caring responsibilities - and want to come back with the right support. These are good qualified teachers who have a lot to offer.

"The combination of extra training places and "welcome back" bonuses in their first year will make it easier for heads to encourage former colleagues to return - and combined with the relaxation of pension rules for retired returners are a further practical step to deal seriously with the problem.

"We are building on the action we have already taken, introducing golden hellos and other measures to assist in shortage subjects.

"Of course, we need to do more, but it is a fact also that there are now 7,500 more teachers in post in England and Wales than in 1998. A net increase in teachers means more teachers are entering teaching than leaving the profession, not the opposite, as some claim.

"I know that headteachers in many schools have had a difficult balancing act over this school year, which is why we are doing all we can to help. I appreciate that many teachers have had to cover for absent colleagues and the mix of short and long term measures we have introduced will reduce the need for such cover. Any school that needs practical help will get it, just as we have given such help to the small number of schools which had been concerned about facing a reduced timetable.

"Today's package is additional to practical steps that we are taking to tackle bureaucracy and reduce workload.

"In the classroom, hundreds of thousands of our teachers are showing the difference that they can make to the life chances of our children. Graduates are increasingly seeing teaching as a good career. Of course we need to do more to keep and reward good teachers - but a substantial start has been made and we need to build on that together.

Editor's Notes

1. On 7 March, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a £837m increase in education spending in England over the next 3 years (PN2001/0125). This £200m package over the next 3 years is part of the £837m announced last week.

2. The recruitment and retention fund will be targeted on schools with the intention of giving heads the greatest possible flexibility as to how the resources available locally are used, working in partnership with other schools and the local authority. The areas in which schools will benefit will be announced in due course.

3. The Graduate Teacher programme is an employment-based route to QTS for graduates aged 24 and over. They are employed by schools as unqualified teachers while following a training plan leading to Qualified Teacher Status. Schools training teachers through the Graduate Teacher Programme receive up to £13,000 a year to help cover salary and other costs. This is on top of the additional grant of up to £4,000 available to cover training costs.

4. Golden Hellos for newly-qualified teachers of maths and science were introduced for those beginning postgraduate training in September 1999. From September 2000, they were increased to £4,000 and extended to modern languages and technology. The £4,000 is payable after the newly-qualified teacher completes induction.

5. Funding for returners courses in London Excellence in Cities Areas was announced in
August 2000. In February 2001, the extension of the scheme to other parts of the country where there are recruitment difficulties was announced. The courses, which usually last about 10 weeks, are intended to refresh the skills of qualified teachers who have been out of the classroom for some time. Returners will be paid up to £150 a week whilst they are training, and money towards childcare costs. Course providers receive a £500 bonus if a trainee goes on to take up posts in the maintained sector.

6. Returners will not have to have attended a returners course to be eligible for a welcome back bonus. These will be offered to those teachers who return to the maintained sector between now and Christmas 2001.

Contact Details

Public enquiries: 0870 000 2288, info@dfee.gov.uk
News Desk 020 7925 6789, news.desk@dfee.gov.uk

Press Notice 2001/0129