Recruitment companies paid £10m to look abroad for solution to teacher crisis

The shortage of teachers has become so extreme that the Government is paying recruitment consultancies £10 million to scout for them abroad.

Global consultancies including Reed Specialist Recruitment, Randstad and Prospero have been put on a centralised roster for head teachers to use when struggling to recruit British staff, according to a tender highlighted by research group Tussell.

Each of the bidders will be paid up to £1.4 million for their work.

Graduate numbers are falling just as secondary schools are about to experience a big influx of pupils.

Unions say many new teachers are leaving the profession, with 84 per cent citing high workloads. Less than three quarters of those who qualified in 2013 were still teaching at the end of 2016.

Paul Whiteman, of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “The Government is still failing to provide enough teachers for our growing school population.”

It is predicted that by next year Britain will have the same number of secondary school pupils as in 2007, when there were 13,000 more secondary teachers.

A spokesman for the Association of School and College Lecturers welcomed the recruiters’ tender, saying: “A lot of schools are looking to New Zealand, Canada and South Africa and recruiting directly, but that is not cost-effective. It is logical to have a national system.”

The education department contracts include offering “acclimatisation” help, reflecting the difficulty many teachers have in adapting to the tough working conditions in some UK schools. Teachers from Commonwealth countries are often shocked at the lack of discipline and motivation among pupils, unions say.

A department spokesman said eight per cent of teachers were from abroad and that it was working to address the challenges faced by some schools.