College teachers are quitting in droves after being whacked by a massive pay cut.
The real terms wages of further education lecturers in England fell by 18% between 2010 and 2022, according to a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
This compares to a 13% drop for school teachers.
The large fall in salaries is making worse the staffing crisis in institutions that teach vocational courses such as childcare.
Almost a quarter of college teachers leave the profession within a year and around half quit within three years of starting.
The new analysis on pay covers 50,000 college teachers in further education colleges in England, which does not include teachers in sixth forms.
College teachers are mainly responsible for teaching vocational qualifications for young people and adults, such as BTECs, and cover a wide range of subject areas, from basic literacy to catering and engineering.
On average, school teachers earn 21% more than college teachers, and the gap has grown over time.
Unlike school teacher pay which is set at the national level, college teacher pay is set by individual colleges.
However, college leaders in England decide salary levels based on annual pay recommendations made by the Association of Colleges (AoC).
Since 2010, the AoC has recommended below-inflation pay increases in all but two academic years, the IFS said.
Imran Tahir, the economist at the IFS who wrote the report, said: "A lot of focus in recent times has been on school teachers strikes, while the plight of the college workforce has largely gone under the radar.
"Many of the issues faced by school teachers are even more acute among college teachers. College teachers have seen their pay fall by 18% in real terms compared with up to 13% for school teachers, and almost half leave the profession within three years of starting.
"College leaders face a perpetual challenge of recruiting new staff and finding money within already stretched budgets to retain existing staff.
"Large real-terms cuts to funding and college teacher pay, combined with low levels of retention, will make it that much harder to deliver on the government’s high ambitions for technical education."
Josh Hillman, Director of Education at the Nuffield Foundation, said: "Colleges play a critical role in supporting more than 1.7 million students in England every year with the core technical and vocational skills that support them to find good-quality jobs and contribute to economic growth.
"The high level of staff turnover associated with falling pay in further education risks undermining the quality of provision and inhibits the sector’s ability to play a central role in Local Skills Improvement Plans and qualification reforms such as T levels."
A DfE spokesperson said: “Whilst it is for colleges to set pay for their staff, we recognise the financial challenges faced by the further education sector. This is why we have made an additional £1.6 billion in funding available for 16-19 education up to 2024/25, the largest funding increase in a decade.
“Brilliant FE teachers are critical to developing the skills which the UK economy needs, and we are supporting colleges to recruit them with bursaries worth up to £29,000, as well as launching the Teach in Further Education recruitment campaign to empower people to pass on their skills as full-time or part-time teachers.”
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