Schools minister Robin Walker has been urged to reconsider the deadline for the first round of teacher training accreditations as Covid cases soar, in an open letter from the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET).
The letter to the minister from UCET, the association for university initial teacher training (ITT) providers, calls for a rethink of the “unrealistic deadline” of 7 February for submissions to be included in the first round of provider reaccreditations that are going ahead as part of the government’s shake-up of teacher training in England.
Last week, the Department for Education’s long-anticipated response to a consultation on the controversial ITT market review revealed that newly reformed courses would not be expected to start until September 2024 - a year later than originally proposed.
However, the DfE insisted the first round of provider accreditations would still go ahead in early 2022, with the deadline two months away.
In the open letter, James Noble-Rogers, executive director of UCET, said: “I have never seen my colleagues or ITE [(initial teacher education)] providers faced with such pressure. Things are at breaking point. Steps must be taken to alleviate the situation.”
Mr Noble-Rogers also asked that “steps be taken to mitigate the impact these are having on ITE providers and, potentially, on teacher supply”.
Covid pressure
The letter comes as the FFT education data lab revealed that school sickness absence among pupils had climbed to its highest level this term since autumn 2020, and stated it said would be having “a knock-on effect on staff absence”.
Mr Noble-Rogers said: “We can see no rationale for the tight deadline, especially as implementation of the reforms has now been put back to September 2024.”
He added that “allowing for Christmas”, ITE providers would “only have a matter of weeks” to prepare for round one applications.
“At the same time, they are having to face unprecedented pressure in tackling placement and other difficulties associated with significant increases in Covid cases,” Mr Noble-Rogers continued.
“The impact of ever-increasing Covid cases, Early Career Framework related demands on mentor capacity and school concerns about Ofsted inspections is having a significant impact on placement availability and therefore on the ability of ITE providers to recruit student teachers.”
He added that further disruption to placement availability would be expected in the new year as Omicron spreads.
Last month, the NAHT school leaders’ union warned that the surge in teacher applications during the pandemic had “evaporated”, sparking concerns about teacher supply.
Mr Noble-Rogers added that UCET welcomed the DfE’s decisions that there would be no “artificial rationing” of the number of ITE providers accredited, ITE providers could design their own curricula and that there would be “a place for providers of all types and size in the new market”.
Responding to the report at the beginning of the month, UCET said: “The case for an accreditation process has not been made, and we are worried that it might be used as a means to introduce further changes that have not been consulted upon.”
Emma Hollis, executive director of the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT), also had concerns about the tight timeline, saying it demonstrated “a complete lack of recognition of the pressures in the school sector” and “shows the government to be unresponsive to the reasonable arguments put to it over the past few months regarding the incredible strain everyone is under”.
Following the government’s announcement of Plan B measures on Wednesday, no further measures were announced for schools, with the DfE saying it expects schools to continue to deliver in-person teaching for the remainder of the term.
