Date published: 28th November
Published by: John Howson
The DfE published the ITT Census this morning https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-trainee-number-census-2019-to-2020 I suspect that it escaped the purdah rules as it is an annual publication and the date was announced well in advance.
Regular readers of this column, and especially those that read my post earlier in the autumn predicating the outcome, will find few surprises in the data. Indeed, most of my conclusions for the 2020 labour market for teachers still stand.
The headline news is that only English; PE; Biology; history and geography recruited more trainees across all platforms than the DfE’s Teacher Supply Model suggested would be required at postgraduate level. Design & Technology; Computing; Religious Education and music all had better years than last year, but still failed to pull in enough trainees to meet likely demand from schools in 2020 as measured by the DfE Model.
Mathematics; Modern Foreign Languages; Physics; Chemistry; Art & Design and Business Studies all recruited a lower percentage of those seen as needed than they achieved last year. English and PE were also in that category, but still pulled in more than 100% of identified need. In both cases, this may cause problems in 2020, especially if the DfE number has been pitched too low, as it almost certainly has in English.
Overall, thanks to the 26% increase in history numbers; the 34% increase in geography – where the DfE number was reduced, but a lack of recruitment controls meant a similar number of trainees was recruited to last year – and Religious Education where there was a surge in trainee numbers this year to a level last seen before 2013, overall secondary trainee numbers increased by 2% to 17,098 from 16,327 last year. That’s 85% of target compared with 83% last year.
As predicted by many providers, recruitment to primary postgraduate courses fell below target at 98%, down from 103% last year. The 12,400 recruited is the second lowest number of recruits for primary postgraduate courses in the past five years. .
Undergraduate numbers continued to fall, with 4,777 primary and just 184 secondary students shown as new entrants. Some 75 of the secondary entrants at undergraduate level are on PE degree courses. The only other subject worthy of note is Mathematics, with 59 undergraduates.
To be continued later