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Teachers: Mathematics

Answer

The Government are committed to improving the supply of well-qualified teachers of mathematics and science and make financial incentives available to encourage people to train as teachers of these subjects. In mathematics and science we offer a training bursary of £9,000 to students taking a postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE) and, after successful completion of induction, a golden hello of £5,000.We fund the Training and Development Agency for Schools to advertise for recruitment to particular shortage subjects, to provide help and advice telephone lines to potential teacher trainees, and to run pre-training enhancement courses in mathematics, physics and chemistry to enable people without a degree in the subject, but with post-A-level knowledge, to train as specialist teachers in these subjects. There are premia for ITT providers who refer mathematics and science candidates to these courses and who accept them onto the Graduate Teacher Programme.We have extended postgraduate teacher training courses to enable providers to offer significant chemistry, physics and mathematics subject knowledge training. The expansion of Teach First planned up to 2009/10 also gives high class graduates the opportunity to teach shortage subjects in challenging schools.The Training and Development Agency for Schools is piloting courses to retrain serving teachers as specialist teachers of mathematics, physics or chemistry. The Secretary of State has just announced that, following a recommendation by the School Teachers' Review Body, a £5,000 incentive will be paid to teachers who successfully complete such a course.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

465 c854W; 161144

Session

2006-07

Subjects

Teachers Science Mathematics

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk