£100,000 investment for app to address teacher shortage
Photo: Premier Teachers
The North East company behind a teacher recruitment app that aims to address a shortage of teachers and support staff has secured £100,000 funding from angel investor Gary Dewhurst.
The serial entrepreneur has invested in Sunderland-based Premier Teachers to support the development of the new app.
Premier Teachers is a specialist education recruitment agency founded by experienced teacher Mike Donnelly in 2013 which supplies teachers and support staff to schools throughout Teesside, County Durham, Tyne & Wear and Northumberland.
Donnelly's experience working in the sector, supported by research by Sunderland University, led him to put a team together to begin work on the mobile app.
The app allows candidates to apply for multiple posts quickly via mobile phone or tablet using just one tailored submission form. It also provides schools and local education authorities with a searchable database of applicants exactly matching their criteria.
Donnelly said: "This £100,000 investment was absolutely critical as we had taken the product as far as we could and were unable to access the necessary funds to make it a viable product.
"It is a simple and scalable tech solution to address a nationwide shortage of teachers in a profession that has missed government recruitment targets for secondary school teacher trainees for the seventh year in a row."
Dewhurst added: "I'm excited to be investing in Premier Teachers and its app as it offers a simple solution to ease the chronic shortage of teachers.
"I have three children in education and have seen first-hand the challenges that both teachers and schools face in recruiting the right people. I value education highly and that is my main motivation behind this investment."
Dewhurst recently left his role as part-time chief executive of gap personnel Group after selling his remaining shares in the Wrexham-headquartered company, having sold a 75 per cent stake in 2017 to Japanese-listed recruiter BeNEXT - allowing him to devote more time to his investment portfolio of ten companies.
The £100,000 investment in Premier Teachers was fast-tracked via the government's HMRC approved Enterprise Investment Scheme.
This article was published on Tuesday, 26th May, 2020