A pilot scheme that offered non-UK trainee teachers of languages and physics £10,000 to relocate to England has been cut short by the Department for Education, it has emerged.
The pilot scheme, launched in September last year, was due to run for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 academic years as part of government efforts to deal with a spiralling teacher supply crisis.
The international relocation payment (IRP) was designed to cover the cost of a visa, the immigration health surcharge and other relocation expenses that individuals may incur.
But today the DfE said that trainees due to start their training in 2024-2025 will no longer be eligible to receive the funding.
So prospective teacher trainees applying to train in England next year will not get the money.
Payment cut for overseas teacher trainees
The cut comes in spite of the government missing its target for recruiting secondary teacher trainees by 50 per cent last year.
Recent Tes analysis showed that more than a quarter of candidates applying to initial teacher training (ITT) courses starting next year are from overseas.
The DfE said the cut applies to both physics and languages trainees, and to trainees on both fee-paying and salaried courses.
Physics and languages teachers who relocate to England for the 2024-2025 academic year will still be eligible for the IRP. However, the IRP will now be made in two £5,000 payments across two years, the government has said.
The relocation payment was first announced in the government’s Schools White Paper in 2022.
The DfE said it estimated that the scheme could support 300 to 400 teachers and trainees in the first year of the pilot, although the numbers were “uncertain”.
Tes asked the DfE at the beginning of this year how many non-UK trainees and teachers of languages and physics had opted into the relocation pilot scheme.
However, the department said it would not publish the information because the details of the scheme were due to be published “alongside a research report into the department’s international teacher recruitment initiatives”.
James Noble-Rogers, executive director of the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers, said the decision to cut the relocation payment for trainees “makes no sense whatsoever”.
He added that the timing of funding cuts for subject knowledge enhancement courses and the IRP - part way through a recruitment cycle - was “bizarre”.
“The impact on individuals who will have applied for initial teacher education programmes on the understanding that relocation payments will be available will be significant. This is not an appropriate way for government to conduct its business,” Mr Noble-Rogers said.
Lisa Murtagh, head of the Manchester Institute of Education, added that the timing of the announcement was “beyond comprehension” after “all the effort and increased workload” that has gone into recruiting from overseas.
She said that she hopes the DfE “takes the lead” in communicating the decision to individuals so that training providers avoid “reputational damage” .
Ms Murtagh warned that “overseas applicants have been sold false promises” and may have already incurred costs by starting the relocation process.
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