Is incentivising graduates with debt reduction a solution to teacher shortages?

[Fightthepower]

There are teacher shortages and retention problems and we need to encourage more qualified people into the profession.

We also know that people want to get rid of student debt. Could a scheme work where graduates get some student debt written off or a later bursary paid to them if they go into teaching roles in skill shortage areas and stay working in state education for say 5 academic years?

A bit like some of the NHS bursaries? Presumably some would walk then but some would enjoy the profession and stay on.

It’s like the golden hello where you have first year teachers earning more than their mentors. You have to be careful with 2 tier systems as they can become the straw which breaks the camel back for existing staff.

There needs to be an improvement in pay to encourage people into the profession and an improvememt in conditions to keep them.

I think no matter what financial incentives are given, unless poor behaviour is dealt with, workload is dealt with and long-term pay is improved, nothing will be solved.

Need to pay experienced teachers better. The starting salary is good for a graduate at £30k+

Having your earnings pretty much capped at £50k for life (unless you want to go into management) is a depressing thought for most well high quality graduates.

There is this idea that improving experienced teacher pay is for current experienced teachers only & that recruitment is solved by early career pay.

Anyone intelligent enough to go into teaching is intelligent enough to look at what a career choice is likely to pay long term...

Teaching is fine when you're a young grad living with mum & dad/ house share. Supporting a family? Bloody tough.

I agree there needs to be something done. There is a scheme where by in certain geographic areas teachers can claim back student loan repayments if they teach certain subjects. I think this creates as many problems as it solves though as it starts the 2 tier system in my view.

www.gov.uk/guidance/teachers-claim-back-your-student-loan-repayments

So you force them to stay for 5 years in return for an amount off their student loan repayments? Not sure how you'll admin that but it might work better than the usual burseries/handshakes whereby at least two I know took the training cash then buggered off at the end of their first year.

My friend is a senior leading in teaching in London: she said a loan forgiveness program would incentivise even more women (as they are fairly debt adverse) to go into teaching and that’s not who they need. They need more black men, muslim women (she particularly mentioned hijabis and niqabis) and young career changers. To attract these people you need to either increase salaries or make working hours more flexible both of which LEAs and MPs aren’t willing to do.

I think this used to exist. I have a friend who qualified in about 2001 and I’m sure she said a bit of her loan was paid off each year and done within 5. Loans were far far smaller back then of course, with tuition fees only £1k (and not everyone paying them I think).

I think it might work, certainly better than large amounts for training anyway. At one point you could get something like £20k tax free for training in physics, the issue was the following year as an NQT you earned about £25k taxed. Cue plenty of people training and never actually teaching!!

To be fair, at this point we just need more teachers. Not sure we can afford to be turning people away just because they’re white women.

It's not about money, it's about time. Give every teacher a PPA a day. An hour for planing, marking etc. that would make a huge difference.

They need to be focusing on retaining experienced teachers. Where's our incentive to stay?

This has already been tried. I had a percentage of my student loan paid off for me each year when I first started teaching over 20 years ago (secondary shortage subject). It was a great help but teaching was a very different job back then. I don’t think any financial incentive is enough now to recruit and retain teachers. Not unless there is also a plan to reduce workload. I loved teaching but I had to quit to get my life back.

it’s been mentioned before that in urban schools white women are more likely to drop out of teaching as a profession within 5 years while young, graduate poc women who thrive in teaching are more likely to stay as teaching assistants due to the flexibility. There actually needs to be more discentives for white women.

As an existing teacher of nearly 20 years with still about 4K of debt, this would be a bit galling 🤣 It's a good idea but would be nice to apply to current staff too.

I think it should be much higher all around.
Although it pisses me off experienced excellent teachers get booted out in favour of young graduates because younger ones are cheaper

Lots of good points here and I absolutely agree with the need to find ways to help retain experienced staff but this was more a thought on how to attract new people into the role.

The reason I was pondering it was because my DC are getting towards the age they are considering what they will do when they leave school. I would love them to have the chance to study at University as I did but the thought of the volume of debt and not being guaranteed a job at the end makes me feel really worried on their behalf. But if they could study a subject like English literature or history or a language that they already enjoy but do it safe in the knowledge that they could then chip away faster at their student loans it would feel less of an out and out financial gamble. My DC in question has mentioned they’d quite like to teach but the prospect of all that debt does trouble me on their behalf (along with lots of other comments about the actual job.)

I’m sure there are lots of other potential pitfalls with this idea, for example, you could end up with people who had no desire to teach in the profession just to pay off student loans which would not be desirable.

But it’s a shame when you find yourself thinking you might actively discourage your child to continue to study or to enter a profession like teaching because financially it just doesn’t make sense.

I think this reinforces my point, as you still have debt on what would have been a relatively low loan amount. Nowadays tuition fees alone would be between 30-40k depending on the length of course plus maintenance loans on top. It just feels like it would be an insurmountable amount to pay especially when they will then likely want to save up to get on the housing ladder.

It’s why I started having a quick look to see if there are any degrees with associated funding still.

That’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. What is important is twofold - 1. Keeping the well qualified and experienced staff. This can be done in a number of ways but paying better, cutting workload and driving down bureaucracy, including getting rid of the ridiculous numbers of often clueless and relatively inexperienced deputy heads and being more open to part time work would be a good start. 2. Encourage good quality candidates to go into teaching. This means valuing people with a good subject degree and a PGCE and not putting too much on their shoulders when they start because they are cheap. I assume your friend is in London as most places are desperate to just have a good quality, qualified teacher in the room and really can’t afford to be picky about their demographics! The fact is, the vast majority of schools and parents couldn’t care less what sex or religion the teacher is.

I think the problem is about more than teacher pay/debt. There are a significant number of pupils needing extra support and currently no budget for trained support staff to help with this. Increasing budget for support staff would help both children and teacher retention.

Well I would rather someone became a teacher because they wanted to. But I fear that ship has sailed.

Sorry, that reply wasn’t intended for you but ozanj

Workload
Behaviour
SEN levels in mainstream schools
Parental attitudes
Rigidity of leave, breaks and lunchtimes (One reason I left was not being able to go to the loo when I need to).
Media and politicians blaming schools for everything and expecting schools to solve all problems

Student debt is so low in terms of repayments that it wouldn't be an incentive at all. It works in places like the US where student debt repayments are crippling each month, but it wouldn't here.

Golden hellos and training also don't work. Why would you be satisfied enough to stay 5 years down the line when your salary is less than the hello/training bonus you had a few years ago?

The only financial way to retain teachers is to make their wages higher in general for their entire career. But ultimately, finances aren't usually the issue in teacher retention- it's the workload and that is what needs to be dealt with.

I'd be very happy with my pay if I worked fewer hours. But currently, at the very top of the pay scale before leadership, I'm doing 50+ hours a week, every single week.

I LOVE my job. But I've got to the point where I haven't got time to try and start a family because of it. And that's mad.

My solution is that state teachers, nhs, civil service and other needed employees as part of their pay package get their student loan paid off at a set amount per year, so eg for each year you work £1200 is deducted in addition to any repayments you make (or more that's tbd) so £100 a month but increasing it perhaps for the most in demand positions. Private sector could also be given the mechanism to do this. I think protects tax payers because you have to stick in your job.

1. Regional pay ~ there are some areas where a starting salary of £30k is good and two main scale teachers of £50k can lead a good solid middle class life - but not in the south east. Where I taught we literally got no applicants because of house prices
2. Stop these ridiculous ‘every teacher changes a life’ adverts - it mis represents the reality of the hard graft of teaching. So many new teachers leave because the reality is so different to the ‘dream’
3. Widen the recruitment net - too many middle class idealists who can’t deal with the new normal. What about teacher apprenticeships? Target communities that don’t traditionally apply ( think the police do this). There are so many resources available now to support teachers and, in reality, in a lot of schools pupils are being taught by non specialists anyway. You could have ‘teacher managers’ to supervise and support. I know we’d all like excellent subject specialists but that’s just not realistic now.
4. Behaviour and managing parents. Parents should not be allowed to approach teachers - it should all be done through a member of SLT who should manage the situation and troubleshoot. Behaviours units in every school and separate SEN hubs with qualified staff to support.

There’s a few ideas for you - most wouldn’t get through the unions or the government because they’re costly. But sticking plaster won’t work - the world has moved on and teaching hasn’t.