ITT becomes more cosmopolitan

Posted on December 5, 2025 by John Howson

Over the past few years, the percentage of the total number of graduates training to be a teacher coming from the United Kingdom has fallen, year on year. On the other hand, the percentage of trainees on these courses from both EEA and ‘other’ countries has increased.

YEAR	UK	EEA	OTHER	KNOWN	% OTHER	% EEA	EEA + OTHER
16/17	23658	1295	506	25459	2%	5%	7%
17/18	24223	1294	532	26049	2%	5%	7%
18/19	26550	1422	634	28606	2%	5%	7%
19/20	26562	1470	806	28838	3%	5%	8%
20/21	31418	1747	919	34084	3%	5%	8%
21/22	27628	1210	823	29661	3%	4%	7%
22/23	20019	1201	722	21942	3%	5%	9%
23/24	19363	880	1053	21296	5%	4%	9%
24/25	20586	1381	1351	23318	6%	6%	12%
25/26	22492	1543	2082	26117	8%	6%	14%

The table has been abstracted from the DfE data catalogue associated with the annual ITT census.https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census/2025-26

This year, trainees from countries in the ‘other’ group accounted for a record eight per cent of postgraduate trainees. Taken together with the percentage from EEA countries, some 14% of the current cohort of postgraduate trainees were from these two groups. The home student total was still 86%, but that is the national figure.

This influx of overseas trainees has helped the government meet more of its targets for secondary subjects than had it just had to rely upon home-based students to fill the places. These cosmopolitan students bring fresh perspectives that will help widen the experience of the home students they are studying alongside.

However, as my previous post suggested, these ‘overseas’ trainees are not likely to be spready evenly across courses, or across the country. A significant number will be on courses in London, while few will be on courses located a significant distance from the capital.

What matters more, is what happens to these trainees at the end of their courses. Will they be able to enter the labour market for teachers, and be provided work visas.as important, after training in England, will they want to teacher in this country or will they look to the rapidly expanding international school market for employment opportunities.

Interestingly, of the nearly 4,500 vacancies currently listed on the DfE job site, only 18 appear to say that ‘visas can be sponsored’. No doubt, when faced with a great trainee and a vacancy that might prove a challenge to fill, attitudes might alter. However, none of the current physics posts sponsor visa students.

Why am I interested in this data? Mostly because the DfE seems to think its job is done with the publication of the ITT census, and the provision of a vacancy website.

Ever since I founded TeachVac in 2013, I have been of the firm belief that as local authorities recede into the background with regard to schooling, so central government needs to know more about the workings of the labour market for teachers. If all 3,500 non-UK trainees didn’t teach in state schools in England, and a number of UK citizens decided to teach overseas, what would be the implications for schools across England? And what would it do to the agenda of lifting young people out of poverty?

Teaching a global profession? What do the physics ITT numbers tell us?

Posted on December 4, 2025 by John Howson

My previous post contained the good news for the government in the headline data about their annual census of those on teacher preparation courses. Digging down into the details of the census, there is at least one worrying trend. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-trainee-number-census-2025-to-2026

The percentage of accepted ITT candidates within each nationality group for selected subjects for 2024/25 and 2025/26

	Percentage of accepted candidates
	UK and Irish national		EEA national		Other nationality
	2024/25	2025/26	2024/25	2025/26	2024/25	2025/26
Total	88%	86%	5%	5%	8%	9%
Primary	94%	94%	2%	3%	4%	3%
Secondary	84%	82%	6%	6%	10%	13%
STEM Subjects	76%	74%	5%	5%	19%	22%
Physics	43%	32%	3%	2%	54%	66%
English	93%	93%	3%	2%	4%	5%
Mathematics	81%	81%	5%	5%	13%	14%

High Potential ITT (HPITT) route and undergraduate routes are not included in this data.
Subject-level candidate totals will not sum to the total candidate number due to duplication caused by candidates applying for multiple subjects.

The footnote about undergraduate routes should not be of concern as there are relatively few such courses for secondary subjects, and the numbers on primary undergraduate courses have been declining over the longer-term.

Of much more concern is the decline in percentage of accepted candidates for physics from the UK and Ireland, down from 43% last year to 32% this year. This has been balanced by and increase from 54% to 66% for candidates from outside the UK and EEA areas.

As there has bene a dramatic increase in the numbers of trainees in physics, does this matter?

On these percentages, the increase in UK and Irish trainees has been from only around 185 last year to 220 this year. That seems like a very small number and worth investigating to see if I am correct?

If I am correct, then the key issue is, where will the trainees from the rest of the world be able to teach? Will the present government’s stricter policies on immigration mean that they won’t be able to teach in England, or as graduates earning a good salary will they be given visas?

Of course, they may choose to teach in the new British state sponsored selective school being established in both India and the UAE that was recently approved by the Labour government.

British Education is a global export, regardless of the PISA scores of home students, and the destination of trainees, both within the state and private systems, as well as overseas, is an important piece of information Minister should pay more attention to than they do at present.

The number of Uk trainees is likely to be boosted in physics by those training through the High Potential route (Formerly known as Teach First), However, the data for those candidates is not included in the census this year.

No doubt there is room for some interesting parliamentary questions about trainee teachers and where they come from and where they go on to teach, especially for those that receive bursaries and other financial support from the State.

Overseas teachers in England. More or less?

Posted on November 2, 2025 by John Howson

How far have teachers from outside the United Kingdom helped keep schools in England staffed during the period when there were teacher shortages? Although it takes a great deal of research to know what and where these teachers are working in England, the DfE in its evidence to the STRB (Teachers Pay Body) did provide some interesting data about changes in numbers of these teachers by their country of origin, between the 2015/16 and 2023/24 November teacher census returns. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/evidence-to-the-strb-2026-pay-award-for-teachers-and-leaders data annex

For the purpose of this blog, countries have been divided into three groups: EEA – effectively all of Europe; countries with 20^th century links to the United Kingdon, either as current Commonwealth countries or for other historical reasons, and countries that do not fit into either of the two other groups.

Taking the EEA countries first. It might be expected that post-BREXIT the numbers their had reduced. This is true for some countries, including France and Germany, and, more interestingly, for the Irish Republic, where there was a loss of more than 900 teachers between 2015/16 census and the 2023/34 census.

EEA	2015/16	2023/24	difference
France	2210	2085	-125
Germany	645	605	-40
Ireland	3520	2595	-925
Netherlands	225	225	0
Sweden	95	90	-5
			-1095

Elsewhere in the EEA list of countries, there were more teachers in 2023/24 than in 2015/16

EEA	2015/16	2023/24	difference
Austria	60	60	0
Belgium	95	100	5
Bulgaria	100	205	105
Czech Republic	75	100	25
Denmark	65	65	0
Finland	60	60	0
Greece	260	590	330
Hungary	175	270	95
Italy	485	850	365
Malta	30	30	0
Norway	25	35	10
Other EEA	15	30	15
Poland	1155	1540	385
Portugal	255	430	175
Republic of Croatia	40	60	20
Republic of Latvia	45	80	35
Republic of Lithuania	110	160	50
Romania	350	740	390
Slovak Republic	150	180	30
Slovenia, Republic	40	60	20
Spain	1255	2100	845
Switzerland	50	55	5
			2905

There were nearly 2,000 more EEA teachers in England in 2023/24 according to these numbers. Greece, Italy and Poland between them accounting for nearly half the increase in EEA teacher numbers, and Spain alone, a further 40% of the total.

For countries with historic links to the United Kingdom there has been a marked decline in teachers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada recorded in the DfE census, and increase in teachers from Jamaica, some countries in Africa, and from the Indian sub-continent.

LINKS TO UK	2015/16	2023/24	difference
Australia	1685	1290	-395
Canada	1580	1330	-250
Guyana	60	45	-15
New Zealand	745	480	-265
Sierra Leone	85	75	-10
Trinidad & Tobago	105	95	-10
			-945

Jamaica, India and Pakistan and South Africa together account for the bulk of the increase in teachers from this group of countries.

LINKS TO UK	2015/16	2023/24	difference
Bangladesh	100	115	15
Cyprus	55	95	40
Ghana	515	665	150
India	865	1615	750
Jamaica	745	1550	805
Kenya	145	160	15
Malaysia	75	100	25
Mauritius	115	135	20
Nigeria	580	860	280
Pakistan	280	560	280
South Africa	1575	1815	240
Sri Lanka	110	165	55
Uganda	70	90	20
Zimbabwe	375	450	75
			2770

Teacher numbers from other countries not in the above two groups tend to be small in number.

Israel was the only country with fewer teachers, down from 60 to 55; a loss of just five teachers.

ROW	2015/16	2023/24	difference
Algeria	55	90	35
Brazil	60	125	65
Cameroon	70	90	20
China	145	315	170
Colombia	55	95	40
Iran	130	160	30
Morocco	55	85	30
Other ROW	955	1540	585
Russia	80	120	40
Turkey	100	170	70
Ukraine	35	95	60
USA	845	985	140
			1285

China and the USA were the only two countries providing more than 100 teachers during the period between 2015/16 and 2023/24.

As Michael Gove provided QTS to teachers trained in the USA over a decade ago, the number of teachers from the USA seems surprisingly small. However, it may not include those teaching in international schools in England that are part of the private sector.

While it is clear that a substantially more ‘overseas’ teachers were recorded in the 2023/24 census than in the 2015/26 census, their numbers alone would not have been enough to have solved the teacher supply crisis. Might they have made a difference to the percentage of teachers from some ethnic groups?

DfE confirms secondary ITT shortfall in evidence to STRB

Posted on October 31, 2025 by John Howson

The DfE’s evidence to the STRB (pay review body for teachers) contains some useful information about the state of the teaching profess, and changes over the past decade and a half since the DfE moved the teacher census from January to November each year. Much has remained the same, across the whole time period. But, before delving into the past, it is worth looking at the table for offers on secondary subjects for 2025 that I created for an earlier post, but now with the data from Table FD4-FD6 of the STRB evidence Evidence to the STRB: 2026 pay award for teachers and leaders – GOV.UK

Interestingly, the DfE doesn’t seem to have included the offers against targets that might have help the STRB to see where shortfalls are likely once the ITT census is published in December.

Subject	Target2025/26	% increase Sept on June	accepted Sept 25 FD6 DfE to STRB	over/under target
Total Secondary	19,270	26%	16843	-2,427
Primary	7,650	34%	9880	2,230
Chemistry	730	49%	909	179
Biology	985	36%	1397	412
Mathematics	2,300	35%	2617	317
Design & Technology	965	33%	678	-287
Art & Design	680	33%	902	222
Geography	935	33%	981	46
Classics	60	32%	42	-18
English	1,950	31%	1760	-190
Drama	620	30%	273	-347
Business Studies	900	29%	235	-665
Music	565	28%	343	-222
Religious Education	780	28%	418	-362
Others	2,520	25%	360	-2,160
History	790	23%	936	146
Modern Languages	1,460	21%	1428	-32
Physics	1,410	19%	1313	-97
Physical Education	725	17%	1491	766
Computing	895	5%	761	-134

As I suggested in my previous post, despite the renewed attraction of teaching for new graduates, there are still some subjects that won’t meet their target. Interestingly, the target for recruiting primary teachers is likely to be massively exceeded this year. Whether all those trainees will find jobs next summer is an interesting question.

With the continued shortfall against targets, where do schools find their staff from, and are they appropriately qualified? The answer to the second part of the question seems to be it depends on whether the school is in Pupil Premium decile 1 or decile 10. (Table D7) The data in this table suggests that schools in decline 1 have higher teacher wastage rates; higher percentages of unqualified teachers; higher percentages of teachers with less experience of teaching and a higher percentage of lesson taught by teachers not seen as qualified in the subject they are teaching. None of this is very surprising, but if the government wants to do something to level up outcomes, then they should pay attention to these percentages.

As to where schools find their teachers to ensure they are fully staffed if there are shortfalls in the numbers emerging from training, there has been a shift in the number of teachers coming from the old dominions, and an increase in those from other members of the Commonwealth. I will discuss these changes in more detail in another blog, as well as trends in recruitment for Europe.

Finally, it is worth noting that the secondary school teacher population expressed as Full Time equivalents (FTEs) barely changed between November 2010 and November 2020, increasing by just 265 FTEs, from 218,736 to 219,001. By contrast, the primary teacher FTEs in the same period increased from 196,258 to 215,632 by November 2024, although this was below the 225,537 FTEs recorded in November 2020, before pupil numbers began to fall.

Numbers granted teaching awards

Posted on August 20, 2025 by John Howson

In a previous post I looked at the prohibition from teaching work of the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA). However, that is only a part of the work of the Agency. The other main task is to maintain the register of qualified teachers, and to grant admittance to the register. There are two main routes to registration. Obtaining QTS in England via one of the several routes available, including the assessment only route, or to seek registration for a teaching qualification awarded overseas. Various governments at Westminster have approved QTS for teachers from certain countries with acceptable teaching qualifications.

The numbers admitted via the various routes in recent years is shown in the table.

	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24	2024/25
ITT in England	37,077	32,877	26,911	25,621
Assessment only route	1,576	1,511	1,697	1,670
Wales/Scotland and Northern Ireland	1,907	1,790	1,457	1,392
OTT recognised for QTS	1,684	5,750	5,233	912
All routes	42,244	41,928	35,298	29,595

Source: Teaching Regulation Agency Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25

Those granted QTS, especially through the ITT routes in England, may not enter service in schools where QTS is a requirement. They may choose to work in the private school sector or those post-16 establishments where QTS is not a requirement. They may also move abroad. On the other hand, those granted QTS by the assessment only route and by converting teaching qualifications from outside of England are highly likely to be either working or expecting to work in a school where QTS is required for a teacher to be paid on the Qualified Teacher Scale.

Schools have aways been able to employ unqualified teachers, once called instructors, either where no qualified teacher was available or where the law did not require them to employ qualified teachers, as in some academies and free schools. That latter exemption may be changed by the current parliamentary Bill once it becomes law.

The decline in ITT registrations is partly down to reductions in the primary ITT numbers. These have declined to meet the reduced need for teachers due to the decline in the birthrate, but the fall in registrations also highlights the ITT recruitment crisis of the years immediately post the covid pandemic. Hopefully, the number of registrations will increase over the next few years as targets should once again be met in many secondary subjects.

Where did overseas teacher applying for QTS apply from?

Country	2023/24	2024/25	Difference
Australia	494	486	-8
Canada	174	148	-26
Ghana	6912	1916	-4996
Hong Kong	107	490	383
India	1762	779	-983
Ireland ROI	93	88	-5
Jamaica	281	157	-124
New Zealand	195	177	-18
Nigeria	5189	1519	-3670
South Africa	617	229	-388
Ukraine	217	131	-86
USA	706	706	0
sub total	16747	6826	-9921

All applications	18,310	12413	-5897
% list of all applications	91%	55%

The response to both a change in the rules regarding overseas trained teachers, and the evidence of a teacher shortage in England, produced a spike in applications in 2023/24 to register as qualified teachers in England from two West African countries, Ghana and Nigeria. Following the exit from the EU, numbers from most EU countries are now very low, amounting to less than 300 in 2024/25, of which 74 applications were from teachers trained in Spain.

Of the countries with the largest number of applications in 2023/24, 1,197 teachers from Ghana; 723 from Hong Kong; 550 from India; 1,309 from Nigeria and 235 from the USA resulted in an award.

Of course, granting an award did not mean that a visa would also be granted, but without these teachers many schools would have found staffing their schools even more of an issue that it actually was in September 2024.

Assessment Only route into teaching: sideshow or useful source of teachers?

Posted on July 28, 2023 by John Howson

How well is the assessment only route to QTS doing, and what part has it played in helping reduce the shortage of teachers in some subjects? The recent data on outcomes for 2021/22 year for this route was contained as a part of the ITT profiles statistics and does produce some interesting information. Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic year 2021/22 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

Assessment only candidate numbers by subject and phase

Subject	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22
Art & Design	29	33	44
Biology	25	65	30
Business Studies	21	19	29
Chemistry	11	9	16
Classics	3	4	5
Computing	10	17	20
Design & Technology	25	33	42
Drama	11	31	35
English	128	150	145
Geography	19	12	18
History	42	35	24
Mathematics	93	89	125
Modern Foreign Languages	15	24	28
Music	22	27	32
Other	25	41	89
Physical Education	64	97	98
Physics	38	9	22
Religious Education	15	29	17
Primary	614	747	612
Secondary	596	724	819
Total	1,210	1,471	1,431

Initial teacher training performance profiles

The numbers in some shortage subjects, such as physics, (leaving aside 2020/21 as possibly affected by the covid pandemic) only represent a small fraction of the total candidates on the Assessment Only route to QTS: around two per cent in 2021/22. Computing candidate numbers were even lower in 2021/22, at just 20 candidates.

Around 40% of the candidates on this route were working to become qualified teachers while in the primary sector, so we do not know the range of subjects that they might contribute expertise to when they have obtained QTS.

In the secondary sector, only English and mathematics were subjects with candidate numbers in three figures, although physical education – hardly a shortage subject – just missed reaching 100 candidates with a total of 98.

The government web site on teaching says that

You can take the assessment only route to QTS if you already meet the standards for qualified teacher status, so do not need any further training.

Instead, you will undertake a series of assessments. This may include lesson observations, providing a portfolio of evidence to show you meet the teachers’ standards, or written assessments. This will vary by your provider.

The assessment programme takes up to 12 weeks.

To be eligible, you need (all of the following):

to be able to show you meet the teachers’ standards(opens in new window) without any more training
to have worked in 2 or more schools
a degree
GCSEs at grade 4 (C) or above in English and maths (and science if you want to teach primary)

Specific entry criteria may vary by teacher training provider.

There are nearly 100 providers of the Assessment Only route certification, although only four are open to non-UK citizens. Based upon the data in the table, some providers must receive very small numbers of registrations each year. Is there a case for rationalisation to provide a smaller number of providers in each region to allow for larger cohorts?

£10,000 to attract overseas teachers

Posted on May 29, 2023 by John Howson

There has been a lot of chatter across social media about the government’s offer of a £10,000 tax free relocation scheme for overseas students starting ITT in certain subjects, and teachers in these subjects being offered a similar package if they will come and work in England. These incentives are to help to overcome the dire shortage of teachers in many subjects that has been well documented in the posts on this blog. There is now even a letter in The Times newspaper on the subject.

Concerns about the incentive schemes range from the issue of stripping out teachers from countries that need them even more than we do. This theme rarely, if ever, looks at whether those countries are training sufficient, not enough or even too many graduates for the local labour market. Then, there is the argument, as in The Times, that teaching is now a global occupation, as it is, but that schools in England make it difficult for those that have worked overseas to return to teach in England. That is a problem the government could fix immediately, and not by offering cash payments.

The DfE could establish a recruitment agency alongside its job board and hire well respected headteachers to interview would-be returning teachers, and certify them as suitable for employment in England. These applicants could then be matched with vacancies on the DfE job board placed by state school and TeachVac for independent school vacancies, and their details forwarded to the school.

If the schools did not take the application forward, they could be asked to explain why these teachers were not short-listed for interview or, if interviewed, not appointed. The feedback could be used to help develop the scheme, if necessary, by offering appropriate one-term conversion courses. An autumn term course, offering say £10,000 to participants that complete the course, would mean these teachers would be available to fill January vacancies. These are vacancies where schools are really struggling each year to fill unexpected departures.

Such a scheme would also stop the return of headteachers flying off to Canada and Australia in search of candidates to fill their posts, as has happened in past periods of teacher shortage.

Expanding on the re-training scheme, the government might also look at the increasing pool of teachers trained for the primary sector that are unable to find teaching posts. Could a one-term conversion course to teach Key Stage 3 in a particular subject allow them to be employed by secondary schools, and release teachers with more subject knowledge to teach Key Stages 4 & 5?

The DfE has been happy to interfere in the recruitment market with its job board, but could be much more involved than just designing the current hands-off incentive schemes and other actions such as writing to ITT providers asking them to consider applicants from around the world. This letter was at the point in the ITT cycle where providers are mostly looking to keep places for home students in case they appear. After all, who knows when the next downturn in the economy will emerge and teaching will once again be a career of interest, a sit briefly was in the early days of the covid pandemic.

Some marks to the DfE for doing something, but there are more marks to be obtained for being even more creative in solving our teaching crisis.

Warning signs on ITT recruitment

Posted on April 24, 2023 by John Howson

The DfE is holding a webinar for teachers looking for a job this afternoon. I suspect that it may well be full or primary teachers and trainees, plus some history and PE teachers. Anyone else still looking for a teaching post for September either has only just started or may need more than a webinar to help them find a job. TeachVac www.teachvac.couk along with other services does offer one to one advice sessions.

However, based upon the applications data for 2023 postgraduate courses released today, the DfE might be better advised chasing up more applicants for next year. April can be a tricky month to assess the status of the applications round for any year because of Easter and other faith festivals. However, some trends are becoming clear.

The increase in applications, as reported previously, is being driven by an increase from those recorded as from the ‘rest of the world’. Thus, of the 2,601 recorded increase in applicants compared with April last year, some 2,014 are shown as from ‘rest of the world’.

The danger is that this increase is masking some worrying trends. The number of applicants under the age of 25 continues to be below the number recorded last year by around 400 applicants, or more than 2%.

More concerning are the nine secondary subjects where offers are at their worst level since before 2016/17. Of the other secondary subjects, most are still below the offers at April in the 2020/21 cycle. Only geography and design and technology are back to offer levels in earlier years. For geography it is the best April since 2018/19, and for design and technology, the best since 2016/17, although even at the current level the target won’t be met for this year.

The sciences and modern foreign languages are the subjects where the greatest improvements in offers can be identified. So, perhaps the bursary and scholarships are making a difference. However, there is not the data to see the extent to which these extra offers are being made to ‘home students’ or those from overseas.

The increase in applicants is significantly affecting universities, faced with nearly 8,000 more applications so far this round: a 20% increase in workload. The total number of applicants rejected has increased from 3,727 in April last year to 5,612 this April. Nearly 300 more applicants have also withdrawn their applications.

Another worrying sign is the decline in applicants domiciled in London and the South East regions where demand for teachers is always the highest.

Unless there is an increase in home applicants over the next couple of months this round is beginning to look as if the outcome will be grim for providers trying to fund courses with limited numbers of students, and for schools seeking teachers in September 2024 and January 2025.

Hopefully, the resolution, when it comes, of the pay and conditions dispute between the teaching associations and the government will include provisions to encourage more graduates to choose teaching as a career. Paying their fees might be a useful concession.

Filling a vacancy for a teacher of physics

Posted on April 19, 2023 by John Howson

Last July I wrote a post about how many teachers of physics might start work in state schools in September 2022. As that post still receives views, I thought that I would update my projection for September 2023, based upon the DfE’s ITT Census of last autumn.

The ITT Census revealed that there were 444 trainee physics teachers studying on all routes on course and programmes that commenced in the autumn of 2022. Some 59 of these are on salaried schemes. That was less than one fifth of the DfE’s target number required to staff our school system.

41 on the High Achievers programme – presumably mostly Teach First

4 on Postgraduate Apprenticeships

14 on the School Direct Salaried programme

That means there were 385 trainees on other routes into teaching, with 300 of those divided between higher education providers and SCITTs. The remainder being on the School Direct fee route.

Allowing for a non-entry rate of 5%, as a result of either not completing the course; entering teaching in an independent school or the further education sector such as in a Sixth Form College, this leaves a possible 350 physics trainees job hunting in 2023. If the non-entry to maintained schools increased to 10% of the cohort, and physics has had lower entry rates in the past than some subjects, the job seeker numbers would be reduced to 315 in total.

Up until the 18^th April from 1^st January 2023, TeachVac www.teachvac.co.uk has recorded 668 specific advertisements for teachers of physics. I am sure that there will also be some other schools that have together posted the 5,384 science teacher vacancies that were really seeking a physics teacher.

This suggests that trainees will be scarce on the ground. Of course, trainees are not the only source of teachers to fill vacancies. There are returners and those switching between schools. Assuming these groups total the same as the trainee number, with the 5% reduction, this might make a total of 700 job seekers for the 668 distinct physics vacancies already advertised and the share of other vacancies where physics was a key component of the job description.

It seems likely that any school seeking a teacher of physics that attracts no interest via a job board such as TeachVac might well need to consider the worth of spending cash on using a recruitment agency. A no find: no fee approach would be the best for a school, but challenging for agencies. However, agencies can also look abroad to see whether there might be teachers overseas willing to fill the school’s vacancy. However, I would think it sensible for a school to ask for proof of success rates before engaging any high- cost agency to fill their teaching vacancy.

If filling vacancies for September will be a challenge, finding a replacement for a January 2024 vacancy for a teacher of physics might well be nigh on impossible for the vast majority of schools. Hopefully, not many schools will be faced with that situation.

Teaching not attracting new graduates

Posted on April 2, 2023 by John Howson

Might history become a ‘shortage subject’ in the teacher labour market? Such a question seems fanciful in the extreme. However, the latest batch of data about applications for 2023 postgraduate courses for ITT where the trainees will supply the 2024 labour market shows the lowest March number for ‘offers’ since before the 2013/14 recruitment round. I am sure that providers are being cautious about making offers, but there does seem to be a trend developing, with non-bursary and arts subjects faring worse than the science and other bursary subjects and the primary sector applications still continuing at a low rate.

Art, religious education, music drama, classics and ‘other’ are subjects where the offers made by the March reporting date were below the March 2022 number. Most other subjects were reporting higher offer levels than in March 2022 – a disastrous month – but below previous years. Design and technology is an exception. The recovery from the low point of March 2020 in that subject continues. However, the number of offers is not yet such as to inspire confidence that the target for 2023 will be met. Offers in art and design in March 2023 were less than half of the number in March 2020.

So, what of overall progress in attracting graduates into teacher at the half-way point in the recruitment cycle? This March, there were 25,163 candidates compared with 23,264 in March 2022. However, the overall increase of just under 2,000 more applicants is fully accounted for by the 2,600 more candidates shown as applying from outside of the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. London has nearly 400 fewer candidates this March compared with March 2022 as measured by the location of the candidate’s application address, and the East of England, down from 2,213 in March 2022 to 1,955 this March.

Applications are being sustained by an increase in career changers. Candidate numbers in the age groups below 25 continue to fall, with just 4,027 candidates in the 21 or under age grouping. By contrast, this year there are already 600 candidates in the 50-54 age grouping compared with 449 in March 2022. The number of candidates recorded as over the age of 65 has increased from 12 in March 2022 to 25 this March! The bulk of the career changers seem likely to be men. The number in this group has increased from 6,525 in the March 2022 data to 8,037 this March. However, the number recruited has fallen from 562 to 419, perhaps indicating that many of these older men are in the group applying from overseas?

All the increase is in applications for secondary courses. Those applying for primary courses has fallen from 28,391 in March 2022 to 27,874 this March. By comparison the secondary applications have increased from 32,551 in March 2022 to 40,193 this March.

The increase in applications from outside of the United Kingdom may well be the reason that every route into teaching has registered an increase in unsuccessful applications compared with the figure for March 2022. It would be interesting to know whether or not Teach First has seen a similar increase in applications from outside the United Kingdom.

Once the overseas applicants have been removed, the picture for March 2023 is mixed, with bursary subjects generally doing slightly better than other subjects. However, the real concern must be the loss of interest in teaching among young home graduates. Such a decline is very worrying.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: overseas teachers