Baroness Donaghy – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Donaghy on 2015-10-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the different controls placed on recruitment to university initial teacher training and recruitment to School Direct and school-centred initial teacher-training programmes in 2016–17 on the choice available to prospective trainee teachers.

Lord Nash

The government is committed to the ongoing expansion of school-led initial teacher training (ITT). The move towards school-led ITT has created new opportunities for universities to grow their business: engaging directly with schools to become their chosen partner; and working with school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) to offer academic awards. In addition, the university sector as a whole has the opportunity to recruit trainees up to the same overall level as they have for the 2015/16 academic year. It is, therefore, not expected that this change of approach will have a substantial impact on the higher education sector.