Recruitment to the teaching profession

Summary

The research reported here was carried out between 1973‐5 and 1978‐80. Funded by the National Foundation for Educational Research, the project's aims were to investigate the perceptions which sixth‐formers held of teaching, and to monitor the progress of sixth‐formers who decided to teach up to the time when they had completed their initial period as members of the profession.

The project was launched at a time when changes were expected in the pattern of recruitment to teaching and in the structure of teacher training. In the event the changes were greater than anticipated, with more upheavals in the training institutions than expected, and unemployment unexpectedly becoming a real prospect for many newly‐qualified teachers for the first time in history. The findings therefore present both a picture of sixth‐formers’ views of teaching at a time when these were undistorted by teacher unemployment and one of their subsequent experiences against a background of change.