Teachers: Recruitment

(asked on 5th July 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information his Department holds on the effect of bursaries for teacher training in shortage subjects on attracting (a) new recruits into teaching; (b) those planning to teach other subjects into shortage subjects.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 10th July 2018

Bursaries are designed to incentivise applications in subjects where it is most difficult to recruit trainee teachers. We have targeted bursaries in recent years at EBacc subjects, which are most commonly required for entry by leading universities.

Departmental analysis of recruitment performance shows a statistical correlation between bursaries and the number of teacher training applications. The National Audit Office’s 2016 ‘Training New Teachers’ report noted our analysis, which found that increasing bursaries by £1,000 led to a 2.9% increase in applications.

The Department is currently undertaking detailed analysis of linked teacher training and school workforce data to explore the proportion of bursary holders awarded qualified teacher status and the progression of bursary holders into the state funded workforce in England.

The Department is also piloting a phased bursary for mathematics trainee teachers starting initial teacher training in the 2018/19 academic year, which comprises a lower bursary upfront followed by two additional early-career payments once in teaching. The pilot will test whether this approach secures a greater supply of teachers than the upfront bursary.

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