Education’s retention crisis: why do teachers leave?
Key findings and conclusions
More than half of non-retiring teachers leaving teaching remain in education
This tells us that of those who leave state schools, 50% stay within the wider education sector. They may go into teaching posts in the private sector or take teaching-related jobs in schools. The important point is they do not leave education, but continue to feel a strong alliance to it and generally want to stay in. It could also mean that a lack of confidence to go outside the sector, or fewer opportunities elsewhere, precludes them from work outside teaching. The report makes an important point that many former teachers remain in positions to return to teaching, which is encouraging.
Teachers do not leave for higher paid jobs
In fact, some teachers take pay cuts to go to a new job. Clearly teachers are motivated by things, other than money. Workload, job satisfaction and conditions are important factors for those leaving.
Teachers who leave teaching work fewer hours in their new jobs
For many jobs, working evenings and weekends in addition to normal contracted working hours are unheard of. This is not the case for many teachers. There are fewer opportunities to work part-time in teaching than in many jobs today and this is especially so for secondary teachers where the proportion who go to work part-time after leaving teaching increases by 20%.
Job satisfaction and wellness increase after leaving teaching
This is such a sad headline to read and an indictment of the profession we love. Backed up by research evidence (e.g. Sims, 2017), there are obvious lessons here for how school leaders and OfstedThe Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services... More sustain and nurture teachers at all stages of their careers and manage their workload.
The report concludes that teachers who leave the profession enjoy their new leisure time and that there is a trade-off between pay and working conditions, with the latter being a stronger motivation to leaving teaching in the first instance. It makes three useful recommendations which the profession as a whole would do well to heed. These are:
- School leaders need to monitor teachers’ job satisfaction and intervene when needed
- Opportunities for flexible working, in particular part-time, should increase
- Government, Ofsted and headteachers have a responsibility to regularly review teachers’ workload and take action accordingly to allow it to be managed better.
There is much to commend in this report. The research is robust and independent and the recommendations, whilst not surprising or different to what is known already ‘on the ground’, offer clear ways forward in the growing teacher retention crisis.
References
- Bamford, S. and Worth, J. (2017) Teacher Retention and Turnover Research. Research Update 3. Is the Grass Greener Beyond Teaching? Slough: NFER
- Department for Education. (2017) Teacher workload survey 2016. London: DfE
- Doherty, J. & Gerrard, K. (2016) Never a better time to be a teacher or are we facing a teacher supply crisis? Education business-online.
- Institute for Social and Economic Research (2016). Understanding Society: Waves 1-6, 2009-2015. UK Data Service. SN6614.
- Lynch, S., Worth, J., Bamford, S. and Wespieser, K. (2016) Engaging Teachers: NFER Analysis of Teacher Retention. Slough: NFER
- Sims, S. (2017) TALIS 2013: Working Conditions, Teacher Job Satisfaction and Retention. London: DfE
- Ward, H. (2017) More than £500K To Bring 49 Teachers Back To The Profession. London: TES
‘In fact, some teachers take pay cuts to go to a new job. Clearly teachers are motivated by things, other than money.’
The teachers leaving may not be motivated by money and the sample they are taken from may not be motivated by money but that is not to say that money is not a possible mitigator to the staffing crisis in teaching.
There is a sampling bias amongst teachers, the only people who become teachers are people who are unmotivated by money because they know it is a poorly paid sector. I do not have evidence for this at hand but I strongly suspect that there are a large amount of talented people who would love to be teachers but opt for another career because the pay is, frankly put, dismal.
I think saying that teachers are unmotivated by money in this case is unhelpful without additional context for the core issue in the above article (teacher shortages).