§ Mr. Barnettasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what information he has as to the net cost per 415W teacher education student in (a) public sector institutions of higher education and (b) university departments of education; to what factors he attributes the differences between the two figures; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. WaldenThe average net recurrent cost of a teacher training student in university departments of education in Great Britain was £3,975 in 1983–84, the latest year for which full information is available. In the public sector most teacher training is now provided in multi-faculty institutions and it is not separately costed in the national statistics. The average cost of public sector higher education in England in 1983–84 was £2,880 per student, after weighting the unit costs for polytechnics, voluntary colleges and other maintained establishments by the incidence of teacher training students between these three types of institution. The difference between the universities and the public sector is mainly accounted for by the research costs of the former, and also by a difference in the cost of premises. There are insufficient data to put values on these differences.