Under these recommendations, many ITE providers might decide the teacher training market is unviable and will withdraw. Indeed, more than 30 providers have already signalled that they may pull out, taking with them some 10,000 teacher training places a year. The new Institute of Teaching, which will provide 1,000 places, will not be able to fill this void, leading to a catastrophic shortage of teachers – a devastating consequence for the country’s teacher pipeline at the worst time imaginable. 

We support the fact that ITE programmes are properly regulated and held to account for the quality of instruction they provide, just like any other publicly funded system. ITE should not be immune from criticism, but an enquiry conducted by the APPG for the Teaching Profession in July 2021 (link) found no evidence to justify such radical changes

Recommendations published by the DfE’s market review group on 5^th July 2021 present huge risks. There should have been a proper call for evidence and it should have been conducted within a reasonable timescale, when the sector was moving beyond the pandemic and when Ofsted had returned to inspection and had a substantial evidence basis assessing how well or otherwise ITE providers are implementing the CCF. There are now widespread concerns amongst the sector that these proposals will actually damage quality and set the profession back, rather than advance it. Find out more about our concerns here.