Teacher training bursaries slashed/axed in response to pandemic (but Classics still qualifies)

[noblegiraffe]

Next year's teacher training bursaries have been announced and it's clear that they're expecting that there will be a large boost in people applying to teach due to the covid recession.

Bursaries of £24k for secondary maths, physics, chemistry and computer studies students
£10k for MFL and classics
£7k for biology

Other subjects and phases will not be supported.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/funding-initial-teacher-training-itt/funding-initial-teacher-training-itt-academic-year-2021-to-2022

They'd better hope that the increase in recruitment isn't accompanied by a large number of teachers jumping ship in response to how they've been treated by the government, especially as there's a concern there won't be enough experienced teachers available to mentor the bumper crop of trainees.

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-huge-concerns-over-post-covid-school-mentor-shortage

Also....Classics still on the list. They all ship out to private schools the minute they qualify. The Tories always find money for their mates...

[quote madderose]@ZolaGrey not just my life, it is not in the interests of children to be taught by student teachers who are not committed to the profession long term and who train for the single year's financial incentive, something I have seen time and time again.

It was an incentive to address a supply issue, not an entitlement. It's not going to be required as an incentive any more because the stability provided by employment as a teacher post pandemic is incentive enough. [/quote]
That is absolute nonsense. The majority of people I've been involved with who have gone through teacher training in the last five years couldn't have done it without a bursary.

This will punish the majority who DO want to teach and have the qualifications and life experience to do so but can't because of the bare bones financial support.

The choices they have made on which subjects to keep bursaries on only goes to reinforce the appalling attitude the government have towards any subject that isn't STEM and the total disregard for anything that doesn't fit their need to churn out indentikit kids with specific GCSE results.

The whole thing is a kick in the teeth and I hope there's a big enough backlash that it'll change.

You points might make some kind of sense madder if they hadn't kept classics so heavily funded.

But in this day and age not funding teacher training makes it seem like some kind of hobby MA.

I have a BA and MA in classics ... went to state school, studied it at A level..... I wouldn't call myself posh, I just loved history and Asterix ...

Classics teachers in my experience have also taught history and RE.

But yeah, let's bash people who have an interest in something a bit different.

Physics bursaries should be for Physics, maths and engineering graduates only.

Incentivising biology graduates to teach Physics (almost invariably very badly) is crazy.

That isn't what the OP is doing, twiz. The point is it is not widely taught. Yet a hefty bursary is still being offered form something predominantly offered in the private sector and with a small trainee cohort and has been removed for secondary English and primary maths. To anyone, regardless of attitude towards classics, its prioritising over subjects society states it 'needs' is bizarre. I can only think there is a powerful lobby somewhere that says if MFL gets a bursary, classics also must. However, MFL isn't even for all languages iirc.

@larrygrylls biology graduates teaching physics is the least of it! Try psychology or forensic science graduates training to teach Maths.

I went to a inner city state secondary in Sunderland which offered Classic Civ and Latin GCSEs. I have an A* in the latter, very useful when studying degree level Spanish and teaching grammar.

The majority of people I've been involved with who have gone through teacher training in the last five years couldn't have done it without a bursary.

I know many people, who trained under a Labour government, incidentally, who had to pay for a a PGCE. Do many other progressions allow you to train for free?

I'd have thought, given the economic catastrophe that is looming, that people can understand and why the state won't incentivise something which is not going to need incentivising.

*professions

Education always does well in a recession. Lots of people retrain and many of those will retrain as teachers I can't believe the government response is to CUT bursaries fir it. Well obviously I can believe it but it is deeply depressing

On a side note, DSs state school offers Latin and classics GCSE but after school, do the pupils who do one of these often do it in top of their normal 9 or 10 GCSEs. I think they have stopped it this year though. I am not completely sure as DS would never in a million years do an after school GCSE!

DD is doing classics in a bog standard comp in a very deprived area-she absolutely loves it🤷‍♀️

has been removed for secondary English

English is not a shortage subject. English graduates are ten a penny- I should know because I'm one of them. There won't be a supply issue. The bursary was an incentive to fix a supply issue, which is going to be eased. Not just because it's nice to give money to people who want to be teachers

Re Classics

I do believe that this is a useful subject to teach to all students, not just those in elite institutions, because of my own experience, and would support it being taught much more broadly in the state sector. However I don't think it should get a bursary in the current climate.

DD has actually gone on to do it for A level as well this year ...

Not round my way madder. There are regional recruitment crises in English and,as you must know, the quality is often poor.

But yeah, let's bash people who have an interest in something a bit different.

I’m not, I’m bashing the government for using taxpayer money to train up teachers for the private sector. Only 25% of them will end up in state schools. Maybe it would be ok if there was a requirement to teach in a state school attached.

In addition it is odd that they are prioritising classics for a bursary (which are incentives for shortage subjects to improve recruitment, never needed for subjects like PE where there are plenty of people willing to train to teach), suggesting that they think they will still need to throw money at people to train to teach classics in a recession, where they are expecting previous shortage subjects like history, English and geography to be fine.

Recruitment figures come out in November so it will be interesting to see how the different subjects have fared.

Are there figures for how many teacher grads go into the private sector? Surely it is the same with nurses and medics too. You can't mandate where people choose to work, unless you are suggesting anyone who ends up in the private sector returns their bursary?

The thing is it is about proportions : classics trainees are far more likely to end up in the private sector.

It was mooted a while back that trainees should stay in the state sector for a while (5 years?). I believe this was rejected as impracticable, which it definitely will be if one of your largest bursaries is for classics.

Extend that to university student loans for "useless" subjects not leading to meaningful well paid work, who never pay back the loan.

You have to value all education equally, otherwise we get the above mentioned issue with arts employees being targeted to do something more useful.

I agree : but that is not what is happening with these bursaries!

They’re not paying vast sums for people to train as maths and physics teachers because they think maths and physics are way cooler than art, they’re going it because no bugger qualified in maths or physics wants to train to teach because they can get more money elsewhere (regardless of recession).

The country has a huge shortage of maths/science-type graduates meaning it has to hire in the relevant people from abroad to fill jobs like engineering and this situation will only get worse if there aren’t the qualified teachers in schools to home grow our own.

That’s why the STEM bursaries are still so high. It’s not about valuing education equally, it’s an economic decision.

Ah nuts if that's true biology has gone down from 26k to 7k. Also cant get any work experience so I already contemplating not not my PGCE in 2021.

I could chemistry or computer science ( programer) but I dont feel passionate about teaching either. This pandemic has me wondering if would be better teaching primary on bank.

If there is rush of applicants for 2021 with no work experience and the possibility of ongoing restricted training opportunities that would be interesting. Not sure I can see it

It does not matter whether teachers go into private sector. Every Physics teacher required by the private sector releases another to the state sector.

There are a (reasonably) fixed number of teachers needed across all sectors. At the moment, in Physics especially, but also Maths and Chemistry, there is a massive shortage. Something like less than. 20% of secondary Physics is taught by Physics graduates.

Whether bursaries are the solution is moot, as you get a second brain drain when the STEM graduates teaching see their colleagues in banking or consultancy making twice as much within 5 years of graduation.

@madderose

The majority of people I've been involved with who have gone through teacher training in the last five years couldn't have done it without a bursary.

I know many people, who trained under a Labour government, incidentally, who had to pay for a a PGCE. Do many other progressions allow you to train for free?

I'd have thought, given the economic catastrophe that is looming, that people can understand and why the state won't incentivise something which is not going to need incentivising.

I trained in 2010. At the time my subject had a taxable bursary of £2000. I think it was called a golden hello back then, and you only received it after completing a year in education after your training year (if my memory serves me correctly). I had to pay uni fees and also had no way of earning extra due to the amount of hours I was working in school, prepping at home and writing essays. I financed it with a student loan, which was the norm back then. All of my friends did the same as most subjects had no financial incentive.

Whilst it is a huge shame for those people who had planned to train and had budgeted these large bursaries into their plans, as someone who has worked with many trainees and recently qualified teachers, I do not think bursaries and the way to fix the teacher recruitment and retention crisis. Whilst it may attract more people initially to the job, my anecdotal evidence suggests that it has done nothing for the retention, which is the key!

@MrsR87 I agree

Also, I wonder if the overall cost to the taxpayer is a factor. The cost of a £9k bursary that 100 people take up is far more than a £26k bursary that 3 people take up. I wonder if the govt make a calculation around the expected total investment in each subject, which might justify a higher amount for classics? Just a thought.