A “CRISIS” in the recruitment and retention of teachers has led to Dorset County Council spending £16.5 million on supply teachers in the past five years.

Figures acquired by the Dorset Echo under the Freedom of Information Act show the amount of money spent by DCC over the past five years.

Between the financial years for 2011/12 and 2015/16, the council spent £16,547,290.59 on supply teachers for schools in the county.

The NUT said it is “scandalous” that so much is being spent at a time of drastic cuts.

It was recently revealed in the House of Commons that a third of teachers who entered the profession in 2010 nationally left within the first five years.

Teachers in Dorset joined a national strike earlier this year over funding but also over workloads.

Hannah Packham, South West senior organiser at the NUT, said: “Supply teachers provide a vital service in our schools; highly skilled supply teachers are invaluable.

“However, we must look at what is driving the need for supply teachers; teacher workload is at an all-time high, having a significant impact on teachers’ stress and sickness absence, and has led to a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention.

“This crisis means that not only are the public paying exorbitant amounts for supply cover; talented teachers who have been trained and invested in by the public purse for the benefit of our children are leaving profession – a double hit.”

Dorset County Council admitted that schools here are feeling the pressure like everywhere else.

Jacqueline Groves, senior manager of educational services at DCC, said: “There is an issue nationally with a shortage of teachers. We feel the pressure in Dorset, as with local authorities everywhere. We have good quality teachers in Dorset.

“By the nature of the job, there will always be a need for supply teachers as schools will need to respond to absences and cannot afford to permanently employ extra teachers. However, we are not seeing undue demand for supply teachers in Dorset to cover longer term posts.”

Miss Packham added that many supply teachers are paid well below those on permanent contracts with agencies “draining millions from education funding”.

She said: “The rip-off of agencies which profit at the expense of decent pay for supply teachers has to stop. The NUT is calling on local authorities, including Dorset, to put in place alternative arrangements for schools to source and employ supply teachers.

“Local authorities should be organising local registers of supply teachers which provide continuity for schools, fair pay to teachers, and provides them with access to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme.

“At a time of drastic cuts to school budgets it is nothing short of scandalous that due to the crisis in teacher retention and recruitment, which the Government needs to address as a matter of urgency, companies are taking scarce financial resources from schools to boost their own profits.”

A YOUNG teacher working in the county has spoken of her experiences.

The teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous, worked as a teacher outside of the county before quitting due to the stress and workload before taking on work as a supply teacher in Dorset.

She then took up work as a teacher full-time again earlier this year as she gives it another go.

She called her first job “very high pressured” and she was left with no support or guidance, which led to her working 60 hours a week or more before quitting in January after only starting teaching in September.

The teacher said she quit due to “sheer exhaustion, emotional heartache and pure stress”.

She said: “This was a very difficult decision for me to make as I had poured a lot of time and energy into pursuing what I thought was my dream job, only for it to make me ill, potentially cost my mental health, and ruin any quality of life I previously had.”

She added that at the Dorset school where she works now another new teacher is already thinking of quitting.

She said: “I still work more than 60 hours a week, and am lucky if I can manage even one full day at the weekend without doing some sort of work. This situation is completely unsustainable.”