Mr Jim Cunningham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Jim Cunningham on 2014-03-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of service leavers (a) applied to and (b) were accepted on initial teacher training in (i) 2008-09, (ii) 2009-10, (iii) 2010-11, (iv) 2011-12, (v) 2012-13 and (vi) the current academic year to date.

David Laws

In the 24 month period between March 2011 and April 2013, 322 service leavers applied to postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT). 132 of these were successful. This is an average of six successful applicants per month.

In the current academic year we have introduced the new Troops to Teachers undergraduate route. This is not comparable to previous years as it is a dedicated undergraduate route which is only for service leavers.

982 service leavers applied to Cohort 1, and the application process ran for 4 months. 41 service leavers joined the programme in January 2014. This is an average of 10 successful applicants per month. We expect a higher acceptance rate for Cohort 2 as we develop this new programme.