The issue of teacher shortages, failed recruitment targets and increasingly high levels of attrition have reached crisis point in England. After failing to meet recruitment targets for many years (saving only a short Covid-related reprieve), education policy appears to be making the situation worse. Following on from the controversial ITT Market Review, the enforced (re)accreditation process has left parts of the country as “cold spots” with no established providers and the formation of new national “super-providers” with no track record or experience of initial teacher education. We argue that this policy initiative is an urgent issue of spatial injustice, exacerbating teacher recruitment and supply issues in areas already suffering from educational isolation (Ovenden-Hope and Passey, 2019), but also having broader spatial effects. The provision of education, and by extension teacher education, can be seen as an issue of spatial justice (Soja, 2010), one which has been made worse since the pandemic, with some areas being disproportionately affected due to access to and provision of local services which serve disadvantaged students and their communities. Soja argues that spatial justice reflects how spatial location and distribution can produce and reproduce justices and injustices, so cycles of advantage are enabled to persist, and indeed become mutually constructive. In this paper we use spatial justice as a lens for looking at the spatial effects of the teacher recruitment and retention policies, and question to what extent policy has exacerbated the problem of teacher support and retention in high-needs schools. Our analysis reveals six policy effects which each have a spatial impact: from narrowing the focus of teacher education only to classroom practice, to locating the power and influence on teacher education provision to government and large-scale providers in and around London and the South East. The analysis of these combined factors shows an increasing marginalization of (particularly rural) universities who find themselves reduced to the role of delivery partners rather than thought leaders.

Ovenden-Hope, T. and Passy, R. (2019) Education Isolation: A challenge for schools in England. Plymouth Marjon University and University of Plymouth. Plymouth, Plymouth Marjon University. Soja, E. 2010. Seeking Spatial Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.