§ Mr. Fieldasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many unemployed (a) teachers and (b) other workers, qualified for help to retrain as secondary specialist teachers for each year since 1978; and if he will list the proportion of successful applications who were registered unemployed teachers prior to announcement of the training course.
§ Dr. BoysonThe scheme for training and retraining teachers was introduced in 1977 as a measure to alleviate the serious and persistent shortage of secondary school teachers of mathematics, the physical sciences and craft, design and technology. Under the scheme, which is operated through the Manpower Services Commission, training awards are available both for people with suitable academic qualifications who wish to take initial training to teach subjects covered by the scheme and for qualified teachers wishing to retrain in these subjects. The number of training awards given in each year to date are as follows:
247W
1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 *1980–81 For initial training 415 340 216 338 For retraining 158 166 124 186 573 506 340 524 * Provisional. No information is available on the employment status of applicants for training awards.