Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many applicants there were to School Direct in 2016; how many of those applications were successful; how many schools participated; and what the total cost was of the scheme to her Department.

The Department does not publish data on the number of applicants to Initial Teacher Training. UCAS, who own this data, does release figures for applications to School Direct but not applicants, and an applicant can have up to three applications. The data is available at:

https://www.ucas.com/corporate/data-and-analysis/ucas-teacher-training-releases.

There were a total of 10,629 trainees on a School Direct course in 2016/17, and further details of how this breaks down can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-trainee-number-census-2016-to-2017

These trainees were recruited through 818 School Direct partnerships, each of which is formed of a minimum of five schools. We are unable to say how many schools are involved because some trainees do multiple placements during the year.

The total cost of the scheme to the department for 2016 will not be available until after the end of the academic year when data submissions will be finalised and subsequently validated.