The government is increasing spending on marketing campaigns to attract people into teaching, as recruitment drops in the face of competition from other professions for graduates.

Earlier this month the government published financial data showing that in August 2016, approval was given to spend £16,680,000 on its annual marketing campaign “which aims to get 35,000 people to apply for a teacher training course each year”. The approval was for the current year from September 2016 to August 2017.

This was an increase from the 2015-16 school year, when the government had spent £10.4 million and from £5.6 million in the year before that.

The numbers enrolling on post-graduate teacher training courses are down almost 7 per cent on the previous year, according to the latest UCAS stats.

The figures revealed that 25,950 trainees were accepted onto teacher training programmes in September 2016, compared with 27,880 in 2015.

More details of goverment spending to try and tackle the teacher recruitment crisis came in an answer to a recent Parliamentary question which revealed that more than £7.7 million was spent on the Get Into Teaching campaign in the financial year until 31 March 2016. 

A Department for Education spokesperson said that the government was spending £1.3 billion over the course of the parliament on encouraging graduates to go into teaching, this sum includes bursaries, scholarships and funding to support school salaried direct, as well as advertising.

“Teaching continues to be a hugely popular career and we take teacher recruitment very seriously,” they said.

“Our increased investment of more than £6m in the Your Future Their Future campaign demonstrates this commitment to attracting the brightest and the best into the sector in a competitive job market.”