Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-05-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information she holds on the number of science graduates hired by secondary schools as teachers across the UK in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement.

Nick Gibb

The information is not available in the format requested.

The number of science teachers in state funded secondary schools in England has increased between 2010 and 2014; from 56,700 to 57,300.

Last year, the Prime Minister announced that we would be spending up to £67m on teacher training and development in priority Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects. This includes training an additional 2,500 mathematics and physics teachers, and improving the subject knowledge of a further 15,000 non-specialist serving teachers in those subjects.

The NAO Report, following their inquiry into ‘Training New Teachers’, stated ‘The overall number of teachers has kept pace with changing pupil numbers, and the retention of newly qualified teachers has been stable’. The report is available from the following web link: https://www.nao.org.uk/report/training-new-teachers/

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