'There's one hell of a crisis out there'

Never have there been so few teachers under 30, and unless the profession is made more attractive to young people, we will face an acute shortage by 2001, warns Lucy Hodges

Education experts are predicting a crisis in teacher recruitment between now and the end of the century as thousands of middle-aged staff retire early and new recruits prove difficult to find - which is why the teachers' pay settlement, due to be announced soon, will be pored over with unusual care for any sign that it will make teaching more attractive as a career.

A staggering 50 per cent increase in the number of teacher-training places is needed by 2001, according to new targets set by the Department for Education and Employment. At present, roughly 20,000 teachers are trained each year, That figure is being pushed up to 30,000. Meeting it will be "challenging", the authorities admit. "But it would be folly to reduce the standards of entry to the teaching profession," says Anthea Millett, chief executive of the teacher training agency.

Educationalists are incredulous. They do not see how the numbers can possibly be reached in view of the trickle of applications for PGCE courses this year, and certainly not without compromising quality. "We're not seeing a post-Christmas pick-up," says John Howson, an expert on teachers' pay at Oxford Brookes University. "We're actually seeing a decline. If we don't see an increase in the next couple of weeks, I will begin to be very worried."

Latest figures show applications for specialist teacher training in subjects already suffering from shortages are down on this time last year. Numbers applying to train as physics teachers this autumn are 43 per cent down; applications for maths 27 per cent down; chemistry 25 per cent down; modern languages 11 per cent down; religious education 18 per cent down; and craft, design and technology 63 per cent down. But there are no problems in some areas - economics, physical education and primary teaching.

Ted Wragg, professor of education at Exeter University, says it has been "screamingly obvious" for some time that the nation was facing a potential problem. In fact, he wrote to the Department for Education about it in 1993.

One of the reasons for the impending crisis is demography. There will be more children in schools each year until 2004. Another is the number of teachers who are quitting the profession in their fifties for reasons of stress or because they have had enough. As many as 6,075 teachers took infirmity retirement last year, a big increase on previous years. And that was in addition to the 10,608 taking premature retirement.

The problem lies in the imbalance in the age structure of the teaching profession. Never before have England and Wales had such a small proportion of teachers under the age of 30. Almost half the teaching force is aged between 40 and 49.

Many of the baby boomers who entered teaching in the Sixties will be reaching their fifties between now and the end of the century. "It could lead to a dramatic exodus in the next decade," says Nigel de Gruchy, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers. "There is a hell of a crisis out there."

Since 1980 local authorities have been actively encouraging teachers to retire early as a way of making budget cuts. So a whole generation has grown accustomed to the idea of getting out by the age of 55.

Other factors accentuate the problem. A-level entries in maths, physics and chemistry have gone down each year for a decade by 1 per cent or so. This helps to explain the shortages in certain subjects. And as the job market for graduates improves - for the signs are it is improving - potential applicants may melt away to alternative careers.

To cap it all, the Government has scored an own-goal, says Mr Howson, by abolishing the bursaries for specialist training in shortage areas. Although ministers have now replaced that with another scheme whereby teacher training institutions may bid for money to provide similar "bribes", there was a period in the current year when no incentive scheme was in place.

"For four months at least there was chaos," says Mr Howson. "At a time when applications were under pressure, it was politically inept to scrap one scheme without having another to replace it."

Mr Howson says there has also been a planning lacuna caused by the free- market approach, which awards places to teacher-training institutions depending on how good they are. That does not necessarily work in the interests of schools because teacher-training students are not that mobile. Many newly qualified teachers like to work near where they have trained. If a market provides the right type of teachers in the wrong place, then the market isn't working, says Mr Howson.

Ms Millett says: "If there was a lack of strategy in the past, there is no lack of strategy now." Thus the training agency has given extra places to the University of East London to recruit needed ethnic minority teachers and more places in maths and science in Teesside.

What else needs doing? Mary Russell, secretary of the Universities' Council for the Training of Teachers, says that unless the training agency and the inspectors make a real issue of the important job teachers do and the need to attract the best people, nothing much will change. Mr Howson calls for a massive promotional advertising campaign on television.

To give it its due, the training agency has spent pounds 1.2m to set up a teacher- training hotline, produce literature and stage exhibitions and road shows for careers advisers. The critics are pretty scathing about what this has achieved, in view of the low rate of PGCE applications. But the training agency says it is too early yet to judge.

Ms Millett seems confident that the targets can be met. She has a coherent strategy to reach them, she says, increasing part-time distance, learning routes and tapping into the group of people who would like to teach but cannot afford to give up their current jobs to train as teachers is part of it. She would maintain quality by sharpening up what is required for qualified teacher status and asking schools inspectors to keep an eye on the quality of training.

She does not rule out the idea of a big television advertising campaign to attract people to the profession, but says it would be extremely expensive - maybe pounds 25m - and might not be needed at all. What is needed is a coherent strategy that goes right across recruitment, training and professional development. "I'd expect to see it [the strategy] bearing fruit within the next two to three years," she says. "It's not going to be an overnight transformation on the road to Damascus."

Teachers' unions believe that only through improved pay will matters improve. At pounds 13,350 a year, the starting salary for teachers is only a little below the average for all graduates. But by mid-career teachers' pay doesn't look so good. At 30-year-old could expect to be earning about pounds 20,000 a year and the head of a large department pounds 26,000 a year.

"A crisis can only be averted if the pay review body awards teachers a pay settlement for 1996 which enables schools to recruit the right number of graduates and to retain existing staff," says David Hart, general secretary or the National Association or Head Teachers.

How the pay compares

Average gross weekly pay pounds pounds

male female

Social worker/probation officer 354.5 333.6 Author/writer/journalist 380 398.4 Secondary schoolteacher 463.8 407.8 Solicitor 664.4 488.2 Chartered accountant 508.9 432.2

Source: Government's New Earnings Survey 1995. Figure for

secondary schoolteacher includes headteachers.