12th February 2016

The National Audit Office has raised concerns about teacher training in its report Training New Teachers.

The NAO said the Department for Education had missed its targets for teacher recruitment for the last four years, with particular problems in secondary science recruitment.

It also raised concerns about the Department for Education’s model of teacher recruitment although it said this had many strengths.

The audit office said the model relied on assumptions that the increase in the pupil population would take place more rapidly than the need to recruit extra teachers and that recruitment shortages would follow similar patterns to those in the 1990s.

It also pointed out specific problems in recruiting teachers in some regions and in isolated rural schools.