Multi-academy trusts and school-centred initial teacher training providers are among the organisations awarded a share of a £2.5 million contract to boost the subject knowledge of trainee teachers.

The Department for Education has announced more than 20 organisations that have been contracted to run Subject Knowledge Enhancement (SKE) courses from this month until March next year.

The DfE said SKE courses are a key part of its teacher supply strategy to support ITT in hard-to-recruit subjects.

The courses are for applicants who have a conditional offer of a place on an ITT programme.

SKE programmes are designed to help these applicants “gain the depth of subject knowledge needed to train to teach in their chosen subject”, the contract notice says.

There was controversy earlier this year when, under the previous government, the DfE said that from April 2024 SKE provision would be focused “on the five subjects with the greatest sufficiency challenges”, which it said were mathematics, physics, chemistry, computing and modern foreign languages.

At the time, James Noble-Rogers, executive director of the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers, criticised the decision to withdraw financial support from SKE in primary maths, design and technology, English, biology and RE programmes.

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