The number of teachers retiring each year is starting to creep up again. When the premature retirement rules were changed in 1997, about 18,000 teachers were going each year. Numbers reached a peak in the 1997-98 financial year when almost 20,000 teachers retired. The following year, it dropped to only 8,700 in England and Wales. In 2000-01, provisional data suggests that 10,000 teachers went. Of these, 3,400 were premature retirements, on the grounds of either “efficiency of the service” or “redundancy”. Even so, this figure is some 900 more than in the trough of 1998-99.

This year a further 2,600 teachers retired on ill-health grounds, in line with the figure for the previous two years, but still well down on the 5,400 who went in 1996-97. It is the figure for retirement on the grounds of “age” that is beginning to rise. Having held steady at around 3,500 for more than decade, last year it topped 4,000 for the second year in succession. The total is unlikely to peak at this level. As more teachers who began in the expansionist late 1960s and early 1970s start to reach the end of their careers, the annual total is set to rise, possibly by a considerable amount. Among headteachers, retirement is already the most common reason for them leaving their jobs.

John Howson e-mail john.howson@lineone.net