The opposition blamed government policy for falling teacher retention rates, and produced figures showing the educators are increasingly likely to quit altogether.
Teachers are now 25 per cent more likely to leave the profession after a year than they were in 2011 when Labour left office, and 17 per cent more likely to leave after three.
The opposition party says the number of teacher vacancies has tripled over the same period, with nearly 1,000 posts currently unfilled.
The shortage of teachers has seen pupil-to-teacher ratios creep up at both primary and secondary level since the Tories took office.
Since coming to power, the government’s pay freeze has cut teachers’ salaries by £4,000 in real terms, with Rishi Sunak’s latest policy hitting 94 per cent of the profession, Labour claimed.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union said Labour was right to highlight the issue and that the government had to “start valuing the teaching profession”.
“After teachers have gone the extra mile over the past year to educate the nation’s pupils remotely and keep children safe, the government’s decision to impose a pay cut is nothing short of a slap in the face,” he said.
“Teacher workload was already excessively high before the pandemic. The OECD has said that educators in England work longer hours than anywhere else in Europe, much of it unpaid.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/teachers-leaving-job-tory-neglect-b1852446.html