High-flyers go back to school
High-flyers including managers and middle ranking professionals are going back to school and becoming teachers, new research shows.
The Teacher Training Agency (TTA) found that nearly a third of new secondary school teachers who had initially embarked on a career outside teaching, held a management or senior position in their previous job.
A further 22 per cent held down a middle ranking professional role.
Maths and science are particular beneficiaries of this trend, with 24 per cent of new maths teachers who previously worked in a different profession coming from a banking or accountancy role. Sixteen per cent of science teachers were scientists or pharmacists in their previous career.
The TTA’s Mike Watkins said: “The knowledge and expertise these professionals have developed in their previous career is often extremely valuable to the teaching profession, especially those with a mathematics, science and modern languages background – subjects where we particularly require additional teachers.”
But Liberal Democrat Shadow Education Secretary Phil Willis is warning that the introduction of top-up fees may reverse this trend.
He said: “£3,000 fees, little maintenance support, and the financial stress of changing careers is hardly a recipe for recruiting high-flying professionals with families to support and mortgages to pay.”
