England’s maths teacher recruitment problem is set to worsen

Everyone should leave school with a solid understanding of maths. Decent mathematics literacy is a hugely important skill in many aspects of life. We need it when budgeting for a weekly shop, asking for a pay rise and completing a tax return.

An interest and enjoyment in maths fostered at school can lead people to study the subject further. Mathematics graduates go on to professions in government, industry, software development and financial analytics, as well as many genres of engineering.

In total, 13% of all employment in the UK is in professions that depend on mathematical sciences. A workforce that has been well taught in maths is crucial to a society’s prosperity.

Building a workforce skilled in mathematics in England, however, will be difficult when there are not enough people qualified to teach the subject at school. Mathematics is a technical discipline. Quality teaching relies on its educators to have specific training: a university degree in maths.

Research published in 2019 in Australia found that secondary school students achieved noticeably higher results when they were taught maths by teachers with a university degree majoring in maths than those “out-of-field” teachers.

But in England, the Department of Education has an ongoing problem of under-recruitment of maths teachers. In the year 2023-24, recruitment in initial trainee maths teaching reached only 63% of its target. Research from 2018 found that less than half of maths teachers in state schools have a mathematics or other relevant degree.

And maths achievement is declining. In the OECD’s programme for international student assessment (Pisa) tests, introduced in the year 2000, 15 year-olds in the UK are recording their lowest maths results since 2006.

The longstanding failure to recruit enough maths graduates to become teachers is now set to be exacerbated by the changes in maths provision at universities. Maths degrees are becoming less accessible to the people who are likely to go on to become teachers.

University options

Over the previous decade, but particularly since the pandemic, Russell Group universities – research-intensive institutions that take students with the highest A-level grades — have increased their intake of students taking maths degrees.

On the other hand, maths options are declining at lower-tariff universities and those that offer flexible study options.

Birkbeck, University of London, no longer offers undergraduate degrees in maths as a single subject. Birkbeck is renowned for its provision of evening and part-time degree courses, which offers flexibility for students who may not be able to attend a traditional course or need to work while studying.

Huddersfield has also discontinued its mathematics courses after reviewing its provision, and many other institutions are considering further cuts and redundancies.

In 2011, lower-tariff institutions accounted for 13% of the market share of the intake of mathematics students. This dropped to just 4.5% in 2021, putting such institutions under severe pressure.

Graduates of post-92 universities – former polytechnics and other recently established institutions, which often require lower grades for entry – are much more likely than their Russell Group counterparts to go into school teaching. A recent report by Professor Paul Wakeling, which was commissioned by the Campaign for Mathematical Sciences, analysed outcomes of mathematical degrees in the UK across the period 2017-18 to 2020-21.

Over that period, it found that 17.4% of graduates from post-92 institutions went into the secondary teaching, compared with around 5.6% from Russell group universities.

The closure of mathematics departments causes the phenomenon of “maths deserts”: large swaths of the country where access to mathematics degree study is limited. This particularly affects students from poorer backgrounds, who are more likely to be living at home during their degree and will attend their local university.

This also affects the provision of school maths teachers. Graduates in mathematics from more disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to go into school teaching than graduates from more wealthy backgrounds.

The decline in the availability of maths degrees at lower-tariff institutions is likely to be reducing the number of potential maths teachers – as well as severely reducing the diversity of people going into maths.

The chronic shortage of specialist maths teachers is set to worsen. Universities around the country are under severe financial pressure, which is likely to lead to further cutting of courses and staff.

This will only exacerbate the problem of teacher shortages – which is turn will lead to declining mathematical literacy in the community, as well as a lack of diversity in mathematics.

Neil Saunders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.