Chancellor fails to grasp the nettle over crisis in teaching

In the Budget, the Chancellor had the opportunity to provide a big and bold solution to the deeply damaging teacher recruitment and retention crisis affecting schools. By not addressing the key issues of teachers’ pay, many more teachers will be lost to the profession and the education of children and young people will continue to suffer.

The failure to deliver a Budget that provides significant real terms improvements in teachers’ pay will further demoralise teachers and make teaching an even less attractive career option for graduates.

The very modest additional funding for teacher training is welcome, but it fails to address the reality of acute teacher shortages across the majority of curriculum subjects.

In this Budget the Chancellor has failed to grasp the nettle and come up with the solutions needed to address the systemic problems affecting the education sector.

Today’s Budget will simply add to the misery faced by teachers and schools.