Skip to main content

Teacher Training (Bursaries)

Volume 170: debated on Monday 26 March 1990

The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if, in respect of initial teacher training in subjects for which bursaries have been made available, he will list for each subject and each year for which a bursary scheme has operated, the number of applicants, the number of acceptances, the target for the subject, the amount of bursary and its total cost, and the proportion of students accepted for each course who completed their qualification, and the proportion who obtained employment in a maintained school, with aggregate totals for each year.

An evaluation commissioned from Bath university showed that in 1988, 83 per cent. of bursary holders went on to teach in maintained secondary schools, a higher proportion than the generality of ITT students. This finding is corroborated by evidence from a DES survey of bursary holders. It is not possible to disaggregate bursary holders from the total of students completing initial teacher training qualifications.Table 1 shows the number of applications, recruitment targets, recruitment figures and total expenditure by subject and year.Table 2 shows the amount of bursary by subject and year.

Table 1
Initial teacher training in the shortage subjects 1986 to 1990
For entry in yearApplicationsRecruitmentTargetsTotal cost £
Mathematics
1986–871,2999011,275541,000
1987–881,8011,1941,3831,287,000
1988–891,5941,1431,5721,489,000
1989–901,8091,1391,5491,483,000
CDT
1986–87643551756441,000
1987–881,044743867944,000
1988–899767649781,114,000
1989–901,5547751,0201,155,000
Physics
1986–87594365522219,000
1987–88962545552560,000
1988–89823456595637,000
1989–90748322611506,000
Chemistry
1989–90675400584380,000
Since its institution, the bursary and the subjects covered have developed as follows:

Table 2
Subjects eligibleYearLevel £
Maths, Physics, CDT19861,200
Maths, Physics, CDT, Technology19871,250
Maths, Physics, CDT, Technology198811,300
Maths, Physics, CDT, Technology Chemistry198911,300
1 + £200 CDT Equipment.
"Technology" was added on legal advice so as to include courses entitled "Technology" which prepare students to teach other bursary subjects up to GCSE standard.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what measures he has taken to monitor the effectiveness of the bursary schemes to attract student teachers to train in shortage subjects and to enter employment in the maintained sector; and what are the conclusions of such measures.

Research commissioned by my Department from the University of Bath school of education concluded that the bursary scheme had made an important contribution to attracting good quality students into shortage subject courses. At the time of the survey 83 per cent. of bursary holders had gone on to teach in maintained secondary schools, a higher proportion than the generality of newly trained teachers, Others were teaching in the independent sector or working in other posts connected with education. An increasing proportion of students had said that they could not have taken the course without a bursary, which helps to demonstrate the value of the scheme in attracting mature entrants to teaching.