This report by Pro Bono Economics for education charity, the PTI, reveals that it would be more cost effective for the Government to invest more money in high-quality professional development for existing teachers than spending on recruiting and training additional teachers into the profession.
The PBE report argues that the additional cost of embedding 35-hours of high-quality professional development a year for all teachers would likely be offset by improved retention rates. Existing research confirms that this additional training could result in an increase in retention rate of 2%, equivalent to approximately 12,000 teachers per year.
This would go a long way towards solving the teacher supply crunch currently facing the education sector. As well as needing to replace the 15,000-20,000 teachers that leave the profession each year, 11,000 additional teachers are needed in the secondary sector over the next three years to deal with an extra 160,000 pupils who will enter into state funded secondary schools.
Improvements in continuing professional development (CPD) have been highlighted as one of the critical factors for keeping teachers in the profession. Analysis from the Education Policy Institute concluded that, while there is significant uncertainty, it was plausible that a 35-hour entitlement could lead to up to 12,000 additional teachers remaining in the profession each year.
The analysis suggests that increasing the provision of high quality CPD for teachers is likely to quickly prove cost effective for the education system, with benefits from improved retention likely to outweigh costs within two to three years.