Crisis looming in schools as more than half of teachers wouldn't recommend it as a career

Sept. 2, 2011 - PRLog -- More than half of teachers in England would not recommend teaching as a career to family members or friends, whilst a similar number are more concerned about their own job prospects than they were a year ago.

These are two of the headline findings from the first of a quarterly "Barometer of the Teaching Industry" conducted by education recruitment specialist TLTP Education.

Of the 1000 teachers surveyed by TLTP Education, 58% said they were more concerned than a year ago, only 11% were less concerned, whilst 31% said their levels of concern were about the same as a year ago. The main cause for that increased concern appears to be school budgets, cited by 55% as the primary issue, followed by too much red tape (37%), the growth in academy schools (35%), an inability to teach what I want to teach (33%), and the threat of violence or intimidation, which was mentioned by 24% of respondents.

Of those questioned 56% said that they would not recommend teaching as a career to family members or friends, compared to 42% who said they would.

On the issues of intimidation and abuse, almost two thirds of teachers (64%) said that they had been verbally abused in school during the last academic year, whilst nearly a fifth (20%) said they had been physically assaulted.

Moreover, whilst only 18% of teachers said they had experienced negative comments being made about them by pupils on social networking sites, 43% said that the prospect of this was a matter of concern for them.

"Our first Barometer of the Teaching Industry shows a profession in a state of some unease," explains TLTP managing director Darryl Mydat. "Uncertainty created by budget cuts and increased workload is being compounded by threats on a number of fronts from within the classroom environment. This matches our experience as a recruiter of seeing experienced teachers leaving management positions and being replaced by less experienced teachers as a way of keeping staff costs as low as possible. We shall be tracking these issues as the academic year progresses."

TLTP Education (The London Teaching Pool Ltd) are education specialists with more than 60 years' recruitment experience, having placed more than 5000 candidates in schools over the last ten years. And, as experts in the special needs sector, TLTP can also provide psychologists, speech and language therapists and physiotherapists for school environments. TLTP Education is also the sponsor of the Pride In Teaching Campaign.

Further information available at www.tltp.co.uk and on Twitter @TLTP or @prideinteaching.

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