Wanted: trainee teachers to plug the schools gap

The Department for Education is under intense scrutiny to explain how it intends to support, retain and develop teachers.With plummeting teacher training applications and difficulties in recruiting enough staff to fill vacancies, tuition fees, unacceptable workloads and budget cuts have all been blamed for the current shortage.“The number of trainees is falling and it raises serious questions for the government,” says teaching recruitment expert Prof John Howson of Oxford Brookes Uni