Responding to a new call from the Get Into Teaching campaign for millennials to make career changes to more fulfilling jobs like teaching, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders' union NAHT, said:
"Teaching can be and should be the most fulfilling career imaginable. Everyone should want to be a teacher.
"Teachers are graduates who have many career choices open to them. They go into teaching with passion, because they care and want to make a difference.
"But we need to drastically improve the retention rates for teachers. If we expect career changers and new teachers to stay in the profession more is needed to create a truly positive and sustainable long-term career proposition.
"The essential components include competitive pay, attractive and flexible working conditions, a healthy work-life balance, opportunities for career-long continuing professional development, and lower risk ways of holding schools to account. Any proposals from government must address these basic issues.
"Ultimately it is very simple: pay people properly and treat them well."
Press and Media contacts:
Steven George
NAHT Head of Press and Media
01444 472886
07970 907730
Rose Tremlett
Senior Press Officer
07545 354363
Email : press.office@naht.org.uk