Labour plan to offer teachers £2,400 to stop them quitting

A Labour government would give £2,400 to teachers in the very early stages of their career in England to try to stop them leaving the profession.

The party says it would also make it compulsory for new teachers to have a formal teaching qualification or be working towards one - a requirement scrapped by the coalition in 2012.

Labour says it would cost £50m a year.

Nearly one in five teachers who qualified in 2020 have since quit, according to government figures.

The plans to improve retention rates, announced by Labour's shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson on Sunday, would see new incentive payments awarded once teachers had completed a training programme known as the Early Career Framework, which covers their first two years in the classroom.

Labour says the payments would be funded by removing tax breaks for private schools.

It also said it would offer more professional development to teachers and merge the "complex network" of different funds that provide financial incentives to teachers into just one, which it says would make it easier to fill shortages in specific subjects or geographical areas.

Labour said it intended to "re-establish teaching as a profession that is respected and valued as a skilled job which delivers for our country".

Additional measures for all new teachers to have qualified teacher status would drive "high and rising standards" in England's schools, the party said.

Education is a devolved issue, which means Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can set their own rules.

Academies and free schools in England have been able to recruit teachers without formal teaching qualifications since 2012, when the requirement was scrapped by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government.

It is unclear if the new policy would affect private schools, which are also able to recruit teachers without formal qualifications.