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Teachers: Termination of Employment

Volume 459: debated on Thursday 26 April 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many primary and secondary school teachers who have left the profession before completing five years of teaching in the last 10 years have not returned to teaching; (131266)

(2) how many (a) primary and (b) secondary school teachers have left the profession before completing five years of teaching in the last 10 years, broken down by subject.

The following table shows the number of full and part-time qualified teachers with less than five years recorded teaching service who left maintained nursery, primary and secondary schools in each year between 1995-96 and 2004-05. The number of these teachers who are recorded as not being in maintained sector service at March 2005 is also shown and the head count number of teachers in service each year. These figures include teachers who retired and are the latest information available. The information is not available broken down by subject.

Full and part-time teachers with less than five years recorded teaching service leaving service and those not returning1 1994-95 to 2004-05

Thousand

Nursery and primary

Secondary

Headcount numbers in service2

Numbers left service3

Numbers not returned to service4,5

Headcount numbers in service2

Numbers left service3

Numbers not returned to service4,5

1994-95

216.0

3.3

2.2

212.0

3.3

2.4

1995-96

217.8

3.4

2.2

209.6

3.8

2.8

1996-97

218.3

3.3

2,2

209.8

3.5

2.5

1997-98

217.4

3.8

2.5

209.4

3.9

2.8

1998-99

219.5

4.4

2.8

212.1

4.5

3.2

1999-2000

223.7

4.3

2.7

213.5

4.5

3.1

2000-01

227.7

4.3

2.7

218.1

4.8

3.3

2001-02

229.1

4.2

2.7

224.4

4.7

3.3

2002-03

227.6

5.1

3.5

227.3

5.2

3.8

2003-045

219.2

4.6

3.0

226.5

5.2

3.6

2004-055

220.3

3.7

3.7

230.9

4.4

4.4

2006

224.4

232.3

1 Teachers leaving service will be counted in each year in which they left and therefore some will be counted more than once if they re-enter service and subsequently leave. An overall estimate of teachers leaving during the 10 year period is not therefore available. In addition teachers who have left service may not have done so permanently. This affects the later years in the series particularly. The increasing trend in teachers shown not returning to service does not necessarily reveal an actual increase in the proportion of teachers leaving service permanently with less than five years service.

2 January of each year. These figures include unqualified teachers.

3 Teachers recorded as out of maintained sector service in England at the end of the year shown.

4 Teachers remaining out of maintained sector service in England at March 2005.

5 Provisional.

Source:

Database of Teacher Records (teachers leaving service) and form 618g survey (teachers in service).