Trainee teachers funding cut by 14% for secondary schools
Number of student places on courses this year down from 16,845 to14,555, with English, art and music suffering most
The number of students funded to train as secondary school teachers was cut by more than 2,200 today as the government wiped funding from 14% of the places on courses.
There will now be just 14,555 places on secondary school teacher training courses starting this autumn, compared to 16,845 last year. The number of English, art and music trainee teachers will drop substantially.
The government will fund 2,100 trainees to teach English in secondary schools which is 315 fewer than last year. There will be 220 less trainee art and design teachers, and 180 fewer trainee music teachers. The number of trainee business studies teachers has almost halved, from 428 to 235, while the number of physical education trainee teachers has fallen from 1,180 last year to 890.
The figures do not include teachers on the Teach First trainee scheme, which trains about 560 students from top universities and places them in challenging schools. Meanwhile, the funding for trainee primary teachers has grown by 6% to 19,730.
Michael Gove, the education secretary, also abolished "golden hellos" in some subjects by ending bursaries worth 6,000 a year for students training to teach subjects including English, history, geography and art.
Instead, those who want to train as physics, chemistry, engineering and maths teachers will receive bursaries of 9,000 a year. Trainees who want to be biology, general science or foreign language teachers will receive 6,000 a year.
The cuts are likely to provoke outrage from teaching unions.
Professor John Howson, director of Education Data Surveys which analyses teacher recruitment patterns, said the reductions in art, English and history trainees could cause problems for schools next year.
"Entering the public sector, whether as a police o! fficer o r a teacher, now demands a level of financial sacrifice many will not be willing to bear," Howson said. "London may face a teacher supply crisis by 2013 or 2014 if the demand for graduates in certain subjects from the private sector exceeds the supply from our universities. Maths and physics are the prime subjects at risk."
Gove has said that teacher training should focus on teaching being a "craft" and that there should be more training on the job. More than 33,000 entrants are trained at university and only 5,000 in schools. Gove said the figures reflect falling numbers of pupils in secondary schools and teacher turnover.
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