Urgent steps need to be taken to allow qualified English-speaking teachers from Canada, Australia and the United States to be fast tracked to qualified teacher status in the UK to help meet the increasingly worrying shortfall in teachers.

That’s the message from education recruitment specialist TLTP Education (The London Teaching Pool) after claims that, for the third year in a row, the government will miss its target for trainee teachers across primary and secondary schools.

Only 30,510 trainees have been placed in teacher training so far for 2014-15 – more than 4,000 short of the target and 7,700 fewer than were recruited in 2010. Some critics of the Government have warned that there could be 27,000 fewer teachers in three years’ time than will be needed. 

The Department for Education spokesperson, in contrast, has argued that it recruited 99 per cent of the teachers needed last year and is confident it will recruit enough this year, citing the reform of teachers’ pay and on-going work to reduce administration and bureaucracy in teaching as positive signs that recruitment into the profession will increase. 

“The trainee teacher shortage is certainly storing up trouble for schools,” explains Darryl Mydat, Managing Director of TLTP Education.

“However, there are steps that can be taken now to help alleviate the problem. Currently, we have a large number of teachers from across the EU who are looking for teaching posts in the UK because, as EU citizens, they automatically have QTS status.

Yet have some reluctance from schools to hire EU teachers with QTS status if their language skills may make communication difficult, if their understanding of the curriculum isn’t all that it might be and if they are going to struggle to control a class.

"However, we also have a number of American-trained, Canadian-trained and Australian-trained teachers looking for roles but, because they are not from within the EU, they need to go through the process of QTS accreditation. We need to be able to fast track them through that process.”

Mydat adds that there remains appetite for recruiting teachers into permanent positions in schools but the skills and experience shortage makes this a challenge.

“There is a skills shortage not only in the core subjects like Maths, Science and English but also in ICT and design and technology. That’s why we urgently need to find a way of attracting former teachers back to the profession and smoothing the way for UK and other English-speaking teachers to get their QTS accreditation, then there are jobs out there to be filled.”

Founded in 2006, TLTP Group is a privately owned recruitment consultancy specialising in the supply of professionals to both the public and private sectors worldwide. It is one of less than ten per cent of educational recruiters in the UK to be awarded Gold Audited status by industry body The Recruitment & Employers Confederation (REC).

At the heart of TLTP’s role as a vendor manager is the guarantee to provide people who are unquestionably fit for purpose. At the same time it ensures that its workforce is placed on assignments to which they are suited as individuals, where they are happy and content – assignments which suit their personal agendas and circumstances, where their contribution is appreciated, where they can provide the vital services for which they were trained and where they can further develop their skill-sets.