Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 20 October 2017 to Question 108341, on graduates: disadvantaged, whether her Department still intends to complete its work to look at approaches to increasing the number of graduates in the workforce by 2018; how it will report back on that work; and if that work is still focused on the workforce in disadvantaged areas as set out in the strategy.

We are considering a range of approaches on the number of graduates in the workforce and addressing disadvantage through the early years’ sector. This work is still underway. We continue to support graduates into the sector through our funding of the Early Years Initial Teacher Training programme, including bursaries and employer incentives. As set out in the early years workforce strategy we also will review early years initial teacher training routes to ensure we are maximising the impact of the programme.