10 September 2019
The Education Minister has written to the Chair of the Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel to update the panel on the number of teacher vacancies remaining at the start of this term.
Senator Tracey Vallois has explained that of the 56 teaching vacancies on May 31st, all were filled by the start of the school year.
There is sometimes a delay with teaching posts, between a permanent teacher leaving, for example, in July, and a permanent replacement taking up post. Sometimes the permanent replacement does not begin work until the following January, as they may need to serve notice at their current school.
There have been new vacancies which have emerged since May 31st. This leaves seven current teaching vacancies out of a total teaching workforce of 764 in Government schools. This represents a vacancy rate of 0.9% - a small proportion of all teaching posts. This figure of seven vacancies is the same as the number of vacancies in September 2018.
The details of the seven vacant posts have been shared, school-by-school, with the Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel. One of these is a primary vacancy, covered internally by the school, and six are in Secondary schools, half of which are in hard to recruit subjects. Cover is in place for each post and recruitment is due to begin to fill the permanent roles.
The Assistant Minister for Education, Deputy Jeremy Maçon, said: “I am pleased the department has been successful in recruiting teachers to fill the vacant posts and I welcome the Scrutiny review of teacher recruitment and retention. The department is diligent in monitoring the challenges of teacher recruitment, which is a national issue. We will continue to work together in the best interests of Jersey students.”
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