Just over a decade ago, it seemed possible that higher education might no longer have a future in teacher training. The talk was all about schools, and training teachers where they were needed, rather than on university campuses that weren’t necessarily located in the places where teachers were required by schools.

Indeed, even as long ago as the mid-1990s, when School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) first rally started, many of the early SCITTS were located where higher education provision was lacking, such as along the north bank of the Thames estuary.

Looking back to 2013, and you can find this post in my Book*, there seemed a real threat to the future of higher education continuing with ITT. Sadly, we lost the Open University, with its mature entrant focus, and a couple of other providers at that time.

Fortunately, the decision by Ministers to ignore the Teacher Supply Model targets in 2013, and overinflate the number of ITT places allocated, compared with the predicted need for teachers by schools, offered higher education a lifeline, while a rethink took place behind the scenes.

Fast forward to the present day, and we have seen postgraduate routes now dominate both secondary and primary ITT. Despite the High Potential route (think Teach First) and the salaried schemes that replaced the former Employment-based route of the GTTP, fee-based training still dominates the landscape for ITT.

What will happen in the future for ITT if the present murmuring about graduate debt becomes an issue, and graduate reject the idea of adding a fourth year of debt at high interest rates to their ‘graduate tax’, is an issue for another post.

What is interesting is the present balance between higher education and SCITTS in the postgraduate fee-paying ITT market. Helpfully, the DfE has some data in the annual ITT census.

			202223	202324	202425	202526	increase candidates	% increase candidates
in cycle accept rate	PG fee-funded	HEI	58%	46%	41%	43%
	PG fee-funded	SCITT	47%	41%	45%	47%
candidates	PG fee-funded HEI		31,020	36,514	39,910	41,170	10,150	33%
	PG fee-funded SCITT		16,334	19,056	20,547	21,827	5,493	34%

There are several interesting points about this Table. Both routes have seen an increase in candidates between the 2022/23 cycle and the 2025/26 cycle – the present group of postgraduate trainees currently preparing to be a teacher.

On the face of it, acceptance rates in higher education have fallen significantly, from 58% in 2022/23 to 43%, for the current group of trainees, while SCITT acceptance rates have increased. It is worth saying, in passing that had acceptance rates not increased, the flow of new teachers into schools would have been even worse than it has been post-covid.

Is there an explanation for the fall in HEI in-cycle acceptance rates. Clearly more candidates might mean more choice, but whereas for SCITTs more candidates meant more acceptances, for HEIs it has meant the opposite. One reason for this might be the increase in overseas applicants. Such applicants might be more familiar with higher education courses rather than SCITTs, so may have disproportionally applied to universities, and that may well have affected acceptance rates. I will try to consider the data around this issue in another post.

Wha t s clear, from the data, is that unless Ministers revise their policy when falling rolls means fewer training places over the next few years, the fee-paying ITT sector for postgraduate courses will see a place for higher education. This was not the outcome many feared might be the case.

However, it will be the attitude of students to debt levels that may influence the future shape of postgraduate, and indeed all ITT, over the next few years.

If would-be trainees refuse to take on more debt, perhaps we might even see the return of the training grant, phased out in 2010 in favour of bursaries and scholarships.

If I was a policy-maker, I would be watching the signs carefully about student’s attitude to debt, especially among current undergraduates.

*Teachers, Schools and views on Education by John Howson. Available from Amazon as an e-book for £9, or as a paperback