Jasper Common and Dan Pledger - from STEM Learning's Monitoring & Evaluation Team - investigate the shortage of specialist Computer Science teachers...
In our previous blog exploring the prevalence of specialist teachers, we found that access to a teacher who is a physics specialist (using the Department for Education definition - somebody who has a relevant post-18 qualification in the subject) is by no means guaranteed. While employing a specialist is not the only way to ensure a teacher has strong subject knowledge and skills, a teacher's degree is the closest measure of subject knowledge held in the School Workforce Census. Northern areas of England seem to face more difficulty securing access to physics specialists, but physics isn't the only STEM subject with difficulties attracting and retaining teachers.
In 2021/22, only 66% of the initial teacher training target for Computing was met. Due to an increased target and a fall in applicants, only 30% of the target was achieved in 2022/23. Retention is similarly challenging: in 2020, 8.1% of Computer Science teachers left the profession. This proportion of leavers is similar to that seen in other STEM subjects but is higher than other core subjects such as English.
These difficulties likely contribute to the low proportion of computing hours taught by teachers with a relevant post-A level qualification - in 2022/23, it was only 54%; higher only than engineering and media. Digital skills are only becoming more important in our increasingly technological world, and more students are choosing to study Computer Science qualifications, so it’s imperative that students are supported to develop those crucial skills by teachers with strong subject knowledge and skills. Keeping in mind that employing a specialist is one guaranteed way to ensure access to that strong subject knowledge and skills - although not the only way - we used the School Workforce Census to look at which local authority districts have a higher proportion of Computer Science specialists.
Figure 1 shows the proportion of secondary schools in each local authority district (LAD) that employ a Computer Science specialist.