DfE wastes £123 million, refuses to release further figures

[noblegiraffe]

While the DfE are busy slating schools for ‘wasting money’ trying to get desperately needed support for kids with SEN, it’s revealed that they spent £123 million on bursaries training up people to be teachers who never started a job in a state school.

Everyone I’ve ever talked to about the massive upfront bursaries available for teacher training in shortage subjects has been baffled by the lack of requirement to actually become a state school teacher at the end of it. Many mentors can tell you about mentees who were only in it for the money.

But it’s ok, the DfE have a solution to this. They’re no longer going to release the figures. The money will continue to be wasted, but no one will know.

Well done guys.

www.tes.com/news/revealed-ps123m-spent-ghost-teacher-trainees

www.tes.com/news/exclusive-dfe-cancels-data-wasted-teacher-bursaries

Wow.
You couldn't make it up, could you ?

I was amazed when I found out there was no contract in place to actually teach for three (5? 8? 10?) years if you'd been bribed to train, to say you had to pay it back (or some proportion) if you didn't stay the course.

When I trained in the 90s plenty of maths pgce students were doing it for the bursary, paid in the May, to clear their debts. Many had no intention of actually going into teaching.

I often think this when I hear those nauseating'get into teaching' ads. So much wasted money. Just make the job more attractive to stay in. Stop pushing out older more experienced teachers (those over 40!) and put all that money for the ads back into schools

And it's so odd. The military sponsor people to do their degrees. If you don't complete a set amount of service for them then you pay back the money. So it's not like other government departments don't work that way.

I know a few who have done it for the bursary but will not be teachers.

This makes me so angry

This is not at all surprising. Especially for those teachers who would take a pay cut to start their nqt year, after having had the higher, tax free bursary bung during their pgce year.

This has fucked me right off.

At one point though you only got it after a year or two of teaching in some subjects?

How times have changed; absolutely everyone I trained with were desperate to actually teach.

£26k tax free is the equivalent of £33k net.
And then they expect you to happily drop to £24k as an NQT.

£26k tax free is the equivalent of £33k net.
And then they expect you to happily drop to £24k as an NQT.

Exactly. Doing more work, with less support, and more responsibility, for far less pay. Who thought that would be a winning deal?