Abstract
Fulfilling the UK’s science teacher quota remains a pressing issue (DfE
Department for Education - a ministerial department responsi... More
, 2019a). Increased science teacher vacancies (DfE, 2019b) and difficulty in recruiting science teachers are ongoing challenges (TES, 2018), and science teachers have also been included on the Shortage Occupation List (Migration Advisory Committee, 2019). Additionally, although 91 per cent of biology teachers have a relevant post-A-level qualification, this falls to 75 and 62 per cent for chemistry and physics teachers, respectively (Migration Advisory Committee, 2019, p. 195). The 2019 Teacher Retention and Recruitment Strategy claims that a high interest in joining the teaching profession exists, but notes that this does not translate into applications (DfE, 2019a). To address this issue, the report sets out three key areas of focus, one of which is to ‘encourage and enable more potential teachers to try teaching’ (p. 32). In line with this, the third step towards becoming a teacher on the government’s ‘get into teaching’ website is to ‘consider school experience’ (DfE, nd). However, Stuart et al. (2011) found that university students with lower socio-economic status (regardless of ethnicity, age or gender) spent more time in paid work and engaged with fewer other extra-curricular activities. If science undergraduates are studying for their science degree and also potentially working to fund their studies, how will they find time to gain an insight into teaching as a possible career? How can we recruit science graduates into teaching more inclusively?
Department for Education - a ministerial department responsi... More
, 2019a). Increased science teacher vacancies (DfE, 2019b) and difficulty in recruiting science teachers are ongoing challenges (TES, 2018), and science teachers have also been included on the Shortage Occupation List (Migration Advisory Committee, 2019). Additionally, although 91 per cent of biology teachers have a relevant post-A-level qualification, this falls to 75 and 62 per cent for chemistry and physics teachers, respectively (Migration Advisory Committee, 2019, p. 195). The 2019 Teacher Retention and Recruitment Strategy claims that a high interest in joining the teaching profession exists, but notes that this does not translate into applications (DfE, 2019a). To address this issue, the report sets out three key areas of focus, one of which is to ‘encourage and enable more potential teachers to try teaching’ (p. 32). In line with this, the third step towards becoming a teacher on the government’s ‘get into teaching’ website is to ‘consider school experience’ (DfE, nd). However, Stuart et al. (2011) found that university students with lower socio-economic status (regardless of ethnicity, age or gender) spent more time in paid work and engaged with fewer other extra-curricular activities. If science undergraduates are studying for their science degree and also potentially working to fund their studies, how will they find time to gain an insight into teaching as a possible career? How can we recruit science graduates into teaching more inclusively?
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Specialist publication | Impact |
| Publication status | Published - 2 Feb 2021 |