David Simpson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2015-01-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government plans to take to support newly-qualified teachers in seeking employment.

Mr David Laws

The Department for Education has reformed initial teacher training so that schools can now play a much greater part in selecting and training new teachers, ensuring that they are well prepared for life in the classroom.

Newly qualified teachers working in the maintained school sector are entitled to a period of statutory induction, which helps to build a bridge between their initial training and a career in teaching. In 2014, the annual newly qualified teachers survey reported that 94% of both primary and secondary trainees rated their induction experience as helpful.

Overall, teacher vacancy rates remain very low (vacancy rate of 0.2% as of November 2013). The Government provides access, through the gov.uk portal, to the ‘Universal Jobmatch’ website, which helps teachers (amongst others) to identify appropriate vacancies. Schools and local authorities (in the maintained sector) are responsible for recruiting their staff and it is their responsibility to select the teacher they consider is best for the post available.