“Schools need to embrace flexible working and offer benefits to stop the “shocking waste of talent” that sees women dropping out of teaching permanently after maternity leave, according to a leading education thinktank.
Jonathan Simons, author of a paper to be published before the Association of School and College Leaders’ conference, said schools in England “cannot afford to keep losing this many bright women” given the shortages of qualified teachers.
The issue is particularly acute for the teaching profession because women make up such a large proportion of its qualified workforce, Simons said.
The analysis of the school workforce by the Policy Exchange thinktank found that about one in four teachers who quit the classroom in recent years were women aged between 30 and 39.”