A sobering reminder of the challenges facing Britain’s education system is the persistent failure to recruit enough teachers in critical subjects. Each year, the Department for Education publishes its targets for teacher training alongside the actual recruitment figures – and this year’s report showed an ongoing tale of two disciplines.
Take the humanities. History in particular has outperformed its targets in the last few years with a healthy pipeline of new teachers. Perhaps that’s a lasting legacy from The Rest is History. English and RE, as well as others like geography, have also fared well.
More concerning is the fall off in teachers of modern languages. Once on track to hit its targets, the recruitment of language teachers has now plunged to less than half of what’s needed. This isn’t just a concern for schools – it’s a reflection of a society that increasingly undervalues multilingualism.
The real alarm, however, lies in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). If the government is serious about fostering a high-tech, future-proof economy, it should be treating the recruitment of STEM teachers as an urgent priority. Yet the numbers paint a bleak picture.
Biology is the sole STEM subject that has consistently reached its target over the last decade. Chemistry and mathematics have hovered close but have fallen away since the pandemic disrupted education. And then there’s physics – a vital foundation for engineering and technology – which remains in dire straits. This year, just 685 students began training as physics teachers, against a target of 2,250. That’s a shortfall of over 1,500.
The Institute of Physics wryly noted that this was starting to improve from a disastrous 17 per cent of target in 2023-24, but this isn’t a post-pandemic anomaly – it’s a long term failure to attract talent into one of the most challenging teaching fields. Without sufficient physics teachers, thousands of students across the country risk losing access to the subject altogether – or being taught by non-specialists. Department for Education figures show that, for the last 10 years over 25 per cent of teaching hours in physics have been by a teacher with no more than an A-level qualification in a relevant subject.
It’s rare for someone with a first-class degree in physics to choose an inner-city classroom over a lucrative career at Dyson or Tesla
This shortfall carries far-reaching implications. While the government proclaims its ambition to build a high-wage, high-skill economy, the reality is different: Britain is failing to train the teachers for its future workforce in the subjects that they need to compete. A lack of qualified STEM teachers will ripple through the economy, leaving the country ill-prepared to lead in critical fields like artificial intelligence, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing.
Part of the problem is structural. Graduates in subjects like physics and computing are in high demand across industry, making teaching a tough sell. It’s rare for someone with a first-class degree in physics to choose an inner-city classroom over a lucrative career at Dyson or Tesla. The government has tried financial incentives, but even generous bursaries (£28,000 for maths, computing and physics) are a drop in the ocean compared to the long-term earning potential of a private-sector career.
There are, however, other solutions worth exploring. Organisations like Now Teach, founded by former FT journalist Lucy Kellaway, have shown how industry professionals can bring their skills into classrooms towards the end of their careers. Over the years, Now Teach has helped over a thousand professionals swap blue-chip jobs for teaching, but in a baffling decision, the Department for Education cut their funding this summer – a move that seems particularly shortsighted given the scale of the STEM crisis. This is especially puzzling given the new government’s pledge to recruit 6,500 new teachers – a goal that will require cost-effective and proven approaches like those championed by Now Teach to succeed. Reinstating and expanding support for such initiatives would be a straightforward way to start addressing the problem.
By combining innovative recruitment programs with proper investment in teacher development, Britain could begin to address its chronic shortages and build a sustainable pipeline of STEM talent. Practical steps, like reinstating funding for successful initiatives such as Now Teach or launching targeted upskilling programs for non-specialist teachers, could begin to turn the tide. With over a quarter of physics lessons taught by teachers lacking qualifications beyond A-level, these measures could quickly improve the quality of STEM education where it is most urgently needed.
This has been an issue for well over a decade. Each year that teachers retire and aren’t replaced by subject specialists shrinks the pool of those that can teach a subject at the highest level. Too many children are missing out on the high-quality teaching they deserve in subjects that are critical for their futures – and for the country’s. If this continues, Britain risks falling short of its potential in fields that will shape the global economy. The government has the data, and it has examples of what works. So why hasn’t it acted?
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