Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to encourage veterans to consider teaching as a post-service career option.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has robust measures in place to prepare our Service personnel for civilian life as well as addressing any accommodation, employment, welfare, health and domestic needs and concerns. While in Service, our personnel can receive skills, qualifications and experience accredited to nationally recognised standards to ease the transition back into the civilian workplace.

The MOD and the Department for Education have worked closely together on the Troops for Teachers Programme. This is a coherent programme that Service leavers can use to access teaching opportunities to increase the number of high-quality Service leavers joining the teaching profession. The MOD and the Career Transition Partnership (CTP) (the MOD’s employment support partner for personnel leaving the Armed Forces) promote the programme through various channels including CTP organised career events for Service personnel; through internal Defence media (such as the Defence Intranet); and through resettlement briefings which take place at CTP centres across the UK. The CTP continues to be successful. Of those personnel who access the CTP, 85% are in employment within six months of them leaving the Armed Forces.

The new two-year, school-based Troops to Teachers programme started in January 2014 and has been designed and developed together with a group of outstanding schools and initial teacher training providers and with the CTP. It uses a rigorous assessment, selection and recruitment process to identify those Service leavers with the potential to become outstanding teachers. This process also recognises the professional skills Service leavers already have and provides training to make best use of and further develop them in schools. Good progress was made in recruiting 41 eligible Service leavers for the first cohort of this scheme. Trainees in the first cohort are in their second term of school-based training and feedback from host schools has been positive.