Teachers (Hansard, 14 December 2000)

§ Mr. Edward Davey
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what meetings his Department has held with London borough chief education officers to discuss a pan-London strategy for the recruitment and retention of teachers in London. [141945]

§ Ms Estelle Morris
I discuss education issues with individual London boroughs regularly. Most recently I discussed a range of issues, including teacher recruitment with the ALG on 11 December. My right hon. Friend announced on 29 August the package of measures for London.

§ Mr. Edward Davey
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what estimate his Department has made of the number of new teachers that will have to qualify each year for the next five years to fill projected teaching vacancies; and what targets his Department has set for recruitment of new teachers for each of the next five years. [141947]

§ Ms Estelle Morris
The firm and indicative targets are announced for rolling three-year periods. On 8 December, I announced that 29,820 places would be available on initial teacher training courses in England in 2001–02, and that the indicative intake targets for 2002–03 and 2003–04 were 29,535 and 29,095 respectively. Those figures will be reviewed at the appropriate time. The targets that I announced do not take account of the 1,680 employment-based training places that will be available in each of the next three years and for which funding had already been announced. These mean that there is provision for 31,570 people to enter initial teacher training in 2001–02 and that, on current estimates, we plan to make 31,215 places available in 2002–03 and 30,775 in 2003–04.
We expect these targets, together with the new £6,000 training salaries that we are now offering graduate trainee teachers, to allow good progress to be made towards recruiting the number of entrants to initial teacher training that we estimate will be needed to ensure an adequate supply of newly-qualified teachers. We have already, this year, secured the first rise in recruitment to initial teacher training since 1992–93, with more than 2,000 more people currently in training than at this time last year.