Written question WQ85389

The number of student teachers required is derived using the Teacher Planning Supply Model (TPSM) for Wales, a statistical model that has been used since 2007/08 to estimate the number of student teachers required. The TPSM is updated annually to reflect changes in historical trends and future projections. This includes data on: pupil projections; national population projections; teacher registration data from the Education Workforce Council (EWC) and actual ITE recruitment and completer data from HEFCW (Higher Education Funding Council for Wales) & HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency). Historical trends in pupil-teacher ratios, wastage rates and the proportional split of re-entrants and new entrants through ITE into teaching each year are used to generate two desired intake numbers for the primary sector and the secondary sector, supported by average number of applications received for teaching posts for consideration alongside the outputs from the model.

These are notified to EWC in the autumn. The EWC then assigns recruitment allocations at the programme level for individual ITE partnerships (apart from the Open University who provide part-time and employment based provision) across Wales for the following academic year.

At present we do not calculate the number of teachers required beyond an annual basis as the number of variables in the TPSM do not allow for an accurate level of requirement in future years. The aim of using the data from the TPSM is to provide an accurate projection of the number of teachers required to meet the needs of the system. Officials are reviewing the TPSM in order to provide longer term indicative figures but actual recruitment levels will continue to be issued on an annual basis.

The latest official statistics on recruitment to ITE programmes were published on 26 May Initial Teacher Education Wales, 2020/21 (gov.wales) and cover the period from 2007/8 to 2020/21.