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Written question asked by Darren Paffey (Labour) on Thursday, 14 May 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 20 May 2026 (named day). It was answered by Georgia Gould (Labour) on Friday, 12 June 2026 on behalf of the Department for Education.

Teachers: Training

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment the Department has made of the potential impact of the recent changes to teacher training funding eligibility on recruitment to Modern Foreign Languages and Physics teacher training courses.

Answer

The department has now achieved over 70% of our target to recruit 6,500 additional expert teachers by the end of this Parliament. There are 4,654 additional expert teachers in secondary and special schools and colleges.

Recruitment of physics trainee teachers has almost doubled since 2023/24, and modern foreign languages recruitment (MFL) has increased by nearly a third over the same period. Our focus is on maintaining the growth in domestic recruitment and improved retention of existing teachers that we have already seen.

As a result, the department has paused the bursary and scholarship offer for new international entrants in physics and languages. International entrants that held an offer to start an initial teacher training course as of 7 May are unaffected by this change and will therefore receive bursaries and scholarships from this autumn. We will review our offer ahead of the next recruitment cycle.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
1476
Session
2026-27
Registered interest declared
Yes
Grouped for answer
Yes
Subjects
Finance Languages Recruitment Teachers Training Physics
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk