TEACHERS are inadvertently helping to perpetuate the recruitment shortfall by telling their pupils not to go into the profession, writes Warwick Mansell.
So says Carol Adams, chief executive of the General Teaching Council, the new professional body for teachers, who is four months into a nationwide consultation programme.
Ms Adams said the message she was getting during visits to teacher-training institutions and schools was one of teachers entering the profession despite advice they had received in their own days as pupils.
Ms Adams said: “The message that young people appear to get is ‘do not be a teacher’.
“It is not that teacers do not enjoy the core part of their job - teaching. But they feel unduly pressured, that they have had to deal with enormous amounts of change very rapidly and that their pay has been eroded.”
Ms Adams said she sympathised with teachers. The issue underlined the need for the GTC, which also oversees recruitment, to talk to the Government about ways of improving teacher morale.
She said: “High morale among teachers is probably the most potent factor in attracting young people into the profession.
“Until we take steps to raise the morale of the profession this is likely to continue to be a negative factor in recruitment.”
