Teacher supply is in a mess. This month has produced the government’s consultation on ITT, the STRB Report and associated pay freeze for all teachers unable to negotiate individual salaries and today the latest UCAS data on applications and offers relating to teacher preparation courses starting this autumn.  While applications for primary sector courses remain buoyant, applications for secondary courses have now fallen below the level reached in July 2020.

Secondary
Applications for Secondary Courses	March	April	May	June	July	August
2015	42990	48380	53210	57480	62910	66020
2016	43820	48570	53600	59220	63710	66700
2017	40440	45280	50040	55710	60680	64760
2018	33940	39220	46660	52530	58830	64150
2019	34600	40560	47270	53250	59440	64890
2020	35940	43270	51030	59470	71060	77330
2021	43910	51090	55980	61480	65990

The month on month addition to applications is well below last year – applicants may make applications to several courses- and more in line with pre-pandemic levels. This is concerning in view of the evidence from recruiters that graduate jobs are not recovering as fast as other parts of the labour market. Even more alarming is the disparity between subjects. Here is my view of what is happening in key secondary subjects in terms of ‘placed’ applicants and those made or considering ‘offers’.

Modern Languages and geography might be described as disaster areas in terms likely trainee numbers this year. Neither subject will meet predicted levels of demand set out by the DfE.

On the other hand, PE and history are matching last year’s record levels and Chemistry is another bright spot, with more than 200 more applicants placed or with offers than last year.

Physic and design and technology won’t recruit enough trainees, and although physics is still doing better than two years ago, design and technology is another disaster area, with trainee numbers possibly heading for their lowest levels since 2013/14.

Art is fine, with numbers double those of two years ago. The same is true for music, although this year’s numbers are down on last year.

Religious Education has seen numbers return to the level of two years ago.

Business studies has lost ground on last year, but is well above two years ago.

Computing has lost much of last year’s increase, although is still above the level of two years ago.

Mathematics has retained the gains of last year, but English has some 600 fewer applicants placed or with offers, taking the subject back to 2017/18 levels.

Finally, biology is a bit of a puzzle. Last year numbers reached record levels, but this year they are less than half those levels and currently below likely DfE predicted need levels. This may be a reaction to the state of the job market for trainees last year.

The DfE has today also published the ITT profiles https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-performance-profiles-2019-to-2020 This reveals a drop in employment in state schools, so maybe course tutors are being more cautious about offering places to trainees that might not fin a teaching post in 2022?

Whatever the reasoning, this will be another bad year for teacher supply, and with a pay freeze it isn’t likely to improve any time soon. Indeed, this year may be the longer period of under-recruitment to target in some subjects since I first started looking at the data on ITT applications in the early 1990s.

Although ITT numbers will need to reduce in the future, as the effects of the falling birth rate work through the system over the coming decade, on these numbers there will still not be enough trainees to meet the needs of all schools in all subjects.

The DfE’s market review of ITT has already affected market sentiment among providers. Now is not the time to totally de-stabilise the market and hope everything will be alright in the future new world. Maybe it is time for the Education Select Committee to take a look at what is happening.