Labour's vow to hire 6,500 new teachers at risk, says watchdog

A government pledge to recruit 6,500 extra teachers in England by the end of this parliament will be difficult to achieve and is likely to fall short of demand, the public spending watchdog has said.

- Sally Weale

A promise by the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, to recruit thousands of extra teachers in state schools, which has been funded by adding VAT to private school fees, forms one of the cornerstones of the government's education policy.

However, a report by the National Audit Office (NAO), published today said a projected increase in secondary schools' pupil numbers was likely to outpace Labour's recruitment goal, leaving teaching vacancies unfilled.

Further education colleges, which are particularly badly affected by a long-standing recruitment and retention crisis, would on their own need up to 12,400 more teachers by 2028-29 – almost double the government's overall pledge, the report said.

Meanwhile, the number of newly qualified teachers who started in state secondary schools in 2023-24 fell to 8,700 – the lowest number since 2010-11. The Department for Education (DfE) has missed its recruitment target for secondary teacher training in all but one of the past 10 years.