Teachers are quitting the profession because of a heavy workload, leaving schools with a staff shortage as pupil numbers increase.
The teacher shortage is contributing to a “growing sense of crisis for schools”, MPs have warned.
In the West Midlands, 24 per cent of secondary headteachers say they have vacant posts, up from 19 per cent in 2010, study by the National Audit Office found.
And it said that “workload is the most important factor” in the struggle to retain teachers.
The average classroom teacher and head of department works 54.4 hours a week - the equivalent of almost 11 hours a day if they stuck to a five-day week, though in practice many of them work over weekends too.
The Department for Education said it was looking for ways to cut teacher workload.
But the Commons Public Accounts Committee, which includes Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs, warned: “The failure of the Department to get to grips with the number of teachers leaving puts additional pressure on schools faced with rising numbers of children needing a school place and the teachers to teach them.”
MPs on the Committee, including Birmingham Ladywood MP Shabana Mahmood (Lab), said the Department for Education was spending £555 each year on training new teachers, but was failing to look for ways of encouraging existing teachers to stay in the profession.
They said in a new report : “Many teachers have cited heavy workloads as a reason for their departure. At the same time pupil numbers are rising and the Department for Education (the Department) expects schools to make significant savings from using their staff more efficiently.
“The Department should have been able to foresee this situation and take action to address it.”
MPs also raised concern about what appear to be large differences in teaching quality in different parts of the country.
An analysis of reports from the school inspection service Ofsted found that 21 per cent of West Midlands secondary school pupils, almost one in four, were in schools rated as less than good in 2016.
The proportion has fallen dramatically since 2010, when it was around 38 per cent, but it is still higher than in the south.
The Committee said: “In five of the nine English regions, all in the Midlands or the North of England, more than 20% of pupils were in secondary schools rated as requires improvement or inadequate for teaching, learning and assessment.”
And it added: “The Department could not explain why the quality of teaching varies so much across the country, and what action it would take to improve quality in the Midlands and the North of England in particular.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: "There are now a record number of teachers in our schools – 15,500 more than in 2010 – and last year, despite a competitive labour market with historic low unemployment rates and a growing economy, 32,000 trainee teachers were recruited.
"Retention rates have been broadly stable for the past 20 years, and the teaching profession continues to be an attractive career.
“We want to continue to help schools recruit and retain the best teachers. We are consulting on proposals to improve and increase development opportunities for teachers across the country and working with teachers, unions and Ofsted to tackle unnecessary workload with specific support for teachers at the start of their careers.
"Alongside this we continue to offer financial incentives to attract the brightest and best into our classrooms.”
Committee chair Meg Hillier said: “A crisis is brewing in English classrooms but Government action to address it has been sluggish and incoherent.
“It should have been clear to senior civil servants that growing demand for school places, combined with a drive for schools to make efficiency savings, would only build pressure in the system.
“Instead they seem to have watched on, scratching their heads, as more and more teachers quit the profession.
“Government must get a grip on teacher retention and we expect it to set out a targeted, measurable plan to support struggling schools as a matter of urgency.
“There are other troubling trends. In 2015/16 school leaders filled only around half of their vacancies with sufficiently qualified and experienced teachers.
“There are significant regional variations in vacancy levels and the quality of teaching also varies across the country. There is not enough good quality, continuing professional development available.
“There is a real danger that, without meaningful intervention from Government, these challenges will become an intractable threat to children’s education.”
