Barriers to teaching
The teacher shortage across the UK has long been an issue, but over the last few years, it has become steadily more challenging for schools to address.
One of the major obstacles to enticing talent into the teaching profession centres around conflicting needs and priorities. Schools need (or at least prefer) permanent, full-time teachers, while many individuals coming into the profession are interested in more flexible part-time or hybrid roles that fit around their lifestyle and family considerations.
As such, educators now have to review traditional teaching roles to find ways to meet the changing social norms around employment. For example, how might hybrid work models be incorporated into traditional classroom-based roles?
Over the years, the profession of teaching itself has been devalued by many, whether that is as a result of the shift in focus of the role (i.e. combining the academic and pastoral load with increasing administrative work) or pay sector increases that have not – or cannot – be sustained in line with other inflationary increases. If the demands of the role increase, but the financial remuneration fails to keep pace, that naturally leads to a sector shortage.
A 2023 report published by NASUWT, ‘Behaviour in Schools’, pointed to increasing levels of disruption in classrooms, whereby 90% of respondents had experienced verbal abuse or violence from pupils. This level of reported disruption is surely seen as a barrier to entering the profession, alongside more individual viewpoints such as less favourable attitudes towards the young generation, feeling that there will be too much of a generational divide, or wondering what each party has to offer the other.