60% of teachers say that their morale has declined over the past year
According to our recent Teacher Track survey, 60% of teachers say that their morale has declined over the past year. This is perhaps not surprising considering some of the other findings of our poll of British teachers.
We found that:
- 56% of teachers reported that their school budget has shrunk over the past year
- 52% of teachers reported that professional development opportunities have declined over the past year
- 44% of teachers reported that educational technology and learning materials are not being kept up to date to meet student learning needs
More encouraging is that 66% of teachers say they are proud of what they do, but troublingly plurality (44%) say they would not recommend being a teacher as a great thing to do, while 39% say they would recommend it. This finding could represent a challenge in attracting the best individuals into the teaching profession.
These findings should partly explain another of our results, which is that 33% of teachers say they are likely to leave the profession to go into a different occupation within the next five years.
Commenting on the findings, YouGov’s Associate Director, Ian Neale said: “The sentiment from teachers is that at the moment the life of a teacher is not an easy one. These results indicate that teachers are feeling like they are not being adequately supported, which explains why a fairly strong majority say their morale has gone down over the past year. It is possible some of this is due to the profession still adjusting to tighter budgets and changes being brought in by the current government, but it’s also possible that a deeper dissatisfaction is setting in. It will be interesting to see whether this downward trend in morale continues in the next wave of our Teacher Track survey.”
