The Guardian – Sally Weale
“Almost four out of 10 teachers quit within a year of qualifying, with 11,000 leaving the profession before they have really begun their career and record numbers of those who remain giving up mid-career, according to analysis of government figures. The exodus of new recruits has almost tripled in six years, resulting in a crisis in teacher supply in a profession that has become “incompatible with normal life”, according to Mary Bousted, the general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. Denouncing the government’s record on schools, she said the education system was “being run on a wing and a prayer”, with teachers exhausted, stressed and burnt out in a profession that was being “monitored to within an inch of its life”. Addressing ATL’s annual conference in Liverpool, Bousted told delegates that before he entered office, former education secretary Michael Gove had told ATL’s 2010 conference that teachers should be highly valued and that he wanted to give the profession more freedom over how to teach.”(more)