Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to take steps to reintroduce subject-specific teacher training bursaries for art and design teachers.

The Department reviews bursaries for Initial Teacher Training (ITT) before the start of each annual recruitment cycle. As part of this, the Department takes account of several factors when considering the offer in each subject, including historic recruitment, forecast economic conditions, and teacher supply need in each subject. This ensures the Department provides funding where it is needed the most.

In academic years 2020/21 and 2021/22 the Department exceeded the postgraduate ITT recruitment targets in art and design, recruiting 132% and 134% of the respective targets.

The Department recognises that ITT recruitment has become more challenging since then, due to the highly competitive graduate labour market. As a result, art and design recruitment fell slightly below the postgraduate ITT target in academic year 2022/23 (90%).

The Department will review the need for ITT bursaries across all subjects, informed by latest recruitment for academic year 2023/24 and our detailed workforce modelling, prior to announcing the bursaries available for ITT applicants this autumn.