The DfE has today published the ITT profiles for 2021/2022 Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic year 2021/22 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk) There has bene a change in methodology this year, and only completing postgraduate trainees are now counted. In addition, the data may have been affected by completers with extension from 2020/21 and had been affected by starting their courses during the height of the covid pandemic.
Even with these caveats, there are some interesting issues for policymakers to ponder
Provisional employment rates were 81% for those on a school-led route compared to 69% for those on a Higher Education Institution (HEI) route, with the highest rates seen for those on the High Potential ITT (90%), School Direct Salaried (84%), and Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship (83%) routes These three routes have had the three highest employment rates since the Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship was introduced in 2018/19, with High Potential ITT having the highest employment rate every year since 2017/18 (joint highest in 2019/20).
Salaried routes seem to do better in terms of immediate employment in teaching. However, does employment in this context only mean employment in a state-funded schools and not a sixth form college, other further education setting or an independent school?
As elsewhere it states that ‘We provisionally estimate that within sixteen months of the end of the 2021/22 academic year, 22,276 postgraduate trainees awarded QTS in 2021/22 will be employed as a teacher in a state-funded school in England, up from 21,889 in 2020/21. This represents 75% of postgraduate trainees awarded QTS, reversing a downward trend from 80% in 2017/18 to 73% in 2020/21,’ it might be sensible to infer that the data on employment only refers to employment in state-funded schools.
It seems logical that those employed in a state-funded school during training would remain there. However, higher education providers also offer many places in subjects such as physics where competition from the private school sector for teachers might well mean that the percentage entering the state-funded school sector would be lower, even if those working in the further education sector are discounted.
The headline statistics don’t break the data down into trainees on primary and secondary sector courses. As a result, it isn’t possible from the headlines to understand why both the percentage awarded QTS dropped to 93% (methodology changes may have been part of the cause) and ‘of these postgraduate trainees with course outcomes, 29,511 were awarded qualified teacher status (QTS), down from 30,101 in 2020/21. This decrease follows year-on-year increases from 2017/18.’
Trainee qualified teacher status and employment outcomes by subject’
| Subject | Total Trainees | Awarded QTS | Working in state sector school |
| Classics | 66 | 97% | 56% |
| Physical Education | 1,670 | 97% | 70% |
| Business Studies | 309 | 90% | 73% |
| Computing | 575 | 86% | 73% |
| Primary | 15,098 | 94% | 73% |
| Drama | 473 | 95% | 74% |
| Other | 528 | 94% | 74% |
| Physics | 561 | 87% | 74% |
| Total | 31,747 | 93% | 75% |
| Art & Design | 809 | 94% | 76% |
| Modern Foreign Languages | 1,101 | 94% | 77% |
| Secondary | 16,649 | 92% | 77% |
| Chemistry | 1,088 | 90% | 78% |
| History | 1,531 | 93% | 78% |
| Mathematics | 2,647 | 92% | 78% |
| Biology | 1,059 | 88% | 79% |
| Religious Education | 476 | 92% | 79% |
| Music | 388 | 93% | 81% |
| English | 2,350 | 92% | 82% |
| Geography | 660 | 94% | 82% |
| Design & Technology | 358 | 94% | 83% |
Perhaps it is not surprising that only just over half of trainees in classics were working in state-funded schools. For physical education and primary, the low percentages may relate more to a lack of opportunity than to a desire not to work in a state-funded school.
More worrying is the ranking of subjects by the percentage awarded QTS
| Subject | Total Trainees | Awarded QTS | Working in state sector school |
| Physics | 561 | 87% | 74% |
| Biology | 1,059 | 88% | 79% |
| Business Studies | 309 | 90% | 73% |
| Chemistry | 1,088 | 90% | 78% |
| Secondary | 16,649 | 92% | 77% |
| Mathematics | 2,647 | 92% | 78% |
| Religious Education | 476 | 92% | 79% |
| English | 2,350 | 92% | 82% |
| Total | 31,747 | 93% | 75% |
| History | 1,531 | 93% | 78% |
| Music | 388 | 93% | 81% |
| Primary | 15,098 | 94% | 73% |
| Other | 528 | 94% | 74% |
| Art & Design | 809 | 94% | 76% |
| Modern Foreign Languages | 1,101 | 94% | 77% |
| Geography | 660 | 94% | 82% |
| Design & Technology | 358 | 94% | 83% |
| Drama | 473 | 95% | 74% |
| Classics | 66 | 97% | 56% |
| Physical Education | 1,670 | 97% | 70% |
Subjects with significant percentages of trainees in higher education have some of the highest completion rate, so higher education per se cannot be faulted for having an overall lower rate of employment than school-based provision.
However, if the government wants to keep trainees in the state-school system, offering salaried courses base din schools seems like a good idea. Wasn’t that what the School Direct salaried route was designed to do? As I pointed out in an earlier blog, the numbers on employment-based routes are now fewer than in the latter years of the last Labour government. Possibly time for a rethink?
John Howson 