Asking all trainee teachers to complete a college-based placement could help tackle the shortage of maths and English teachers in the sector, the president of the Association of Colleges (AoC) has suggested.

Speaking at a roundtable on the future of post-16 English and maths hosted by TES and UKFEchat today, said the move could help attract more teachers to the sector, as he warned that a lack of teaching staff was one of the key difficulties for colleges struggling to cope with the rise in students taking GCSE resits.

Mr Ashman said a recent survey of AoC members had highlighted a “strong sense” that “we should offer every teacher who is in teacher training, even if they are not following an FE route, a placement in an FE college”.  He added that this could help attract more teachers to the sector. A separate survey in May 2016, carried out by AoC in partnership with TES, found that almost nine in 10 colleges were struggling to recruit maths teachers, with two-thirds finding it difficult to hire sufficient English teachers.

The former principal of Hackney Community College also revealed that the AoC will be creating a policy group focusing on English and maths . This is one of seven specialist policy groups being created as a result of its internal review, with the remits of the other groups to be announced next week, he added.

‘Some progress’

Mr Ashman told the event, held at TES headquarters in London, that the current resits policy had a hig toll on college staff and students, with official figures highlighting that many students were not making progress, but acknowledged that there has been an increase in the number of people achieving a grade C or better in English and maths. “There is some progress, but we believe that it comes at a high cost,” he added. “It is a policy that has a real problem.”

The change in government policy forcing colleges to offer maths and English GCSE to students who obtained a D at school has led to a massive increase in students sitting the qualification, with some colleges having to rent halls and employ extra staff for the exams. 

Lindsey Johnson, vice-principal for curriculum and quality at West Suffolk College, spoke about the capacity issues her college had faced as a result of the increase in resits. Ray Goodman, head of Ciy College Norwich’s school of GCSE, English and maths, said that the  late stage at which colleges had to finalise the number of classes they offer made it “nigh on impossible” to recruit sufficient teaching staff.

The roundtable was inspired by a discussion at the UKFEchat national conference in October. Other attendees included shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden, Ofsted’s deputy director FE and skills Paul Joyce, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ chief executive Mark Dawe and David Russell, chief executive of the Education and Training Foundation.

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