REPORTS of a substantial increase in teacher numbers nationally are masking falls in some local authorities. During 2001, the number of full-time-equivalent teachers fell in 23 authorities and stayed the same in nine. Another 114 authorities in England and Wales saw teacher numbers rise.
Twelve of the LEAs that lost teachers are metropolitan districts in the Midlands and north of England, including several areas with declining industrial bases.
Four are cities that became unitary authorities in the late 1990s, five are rural unitaries and only two are London boroughs. By contrast, nine LEAs saw an increase of at least 10 per cent in teacher numbers. Slough headed the list with a 21 per cent rise.
Two London boroughs, Camden and Islington, managed staffing increases of more than 10 per cent, as did Liverpool and Bradford. Bedfordshire was the only county where teacher numbers rose by more than 10 per cent.
For England, the average rise was 2.29 per cent. Later this autumn the General Teaching Council for England will publish teaching profor every LEA based on its first registration list. These will show whether there are significant differences in the age and gender balance of teachers in different LEAs.
Trainees studying through the Graduate Teacher Training Programme and those teachers without qualified status and who are not studying for the qualification, are included in the DfES totals.
But presumably they will not be included in the GTC figures. These two groupings accounted for 5,800 of the 9,800 rise in teacher numbers reported by the DfES.
Ironically, this increase occurred in a year when stories of teacher shortages were commonplace and some schools even sent pupils home. Clearly, the feverish level of recruitment activity during that autumn paid off. But the question must be asked: “Why was it needed?”
John Howson
John Howson is a director of Education Data Surveys and a visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University
