The physics teacher shortage and addressing it through the 3Rs: Retention, Recruitment and Retraining (England)
A plan to recruit more specialist physics teachers to improve access for many young people and ultimately boost the STEM workforce and UK economy.
This research from the IOP has found that a quarter of English state schools now have no specialist physics teachers at all, meaning that many students do not go on to study the subject at A-level and are missing out on the rewarding career paths physics provides.
Students from areas of lower socioeconomic status are worst affected because their schools are less likely to have in-field physics teachers: 70% of A-level physics students come from just 30% of schools.
The teacher gap comes at a time when physics-powered industries are finding it difficult to recruit, meaning that there is a severe shortage in physics skills in critical sectors such as quantum, photonics, nuclear and semiconductors.
These skills shortages across STEM are costing the UK economy £1.5bn a year.
As a result, the IOP is now calling on the government to invest £120m over 10 years to address the shortage once and for all, with a plan to retain, recruit and retrain the next generation of physics teachers.
The report’s key recommendations include:
- improving retention through measures to reduce workload and provide better support for early and mid-career teachers;
- strengthening recruitment through a range of national programmes and incentives (including for teacher training providers and the schools that are needed to provide placements);
- turbocharging retraining provision, to help established teachers of the other sciences acquire an additional specialism in physics; and
- fixing the broader foundations that underpin a thriving teaching workforce, including reforming school accountability and making teaching more professional and rewarding.
The physics teacher shortage and addressing it through the 3Rs: Retention, Recruitment and Retraining (England)
Download the full report (PDF, 51.3MB)
