Taxpayers' money wasted on inefficient teacher training

The Good Teacher Training Guide 2011 revealed that only 62 per cent of trainee teachers secured a job teaching in a state school six months after qualifying.

According to government statistics, there are almost half a million qualified teachers under the age of 60 who have either never taught in state schools or have left the teaching profession.

The report’s authors warned that the training process is inefficient, given that "there are more teachers of working age not in schools than there are in teaching".

The study ranks teacher training providers. It found that a school-based training consortium in Essex – the Billericay Educational Consortium – came top of 227 providers and outshone both Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

As part of plans outlined in The Importance of Teaching white paper, the government wants to raise the entry requirements for any graduate wishing to train as a teacher.

But the report argued that this ambition might be difficult to put into practice, since the proportion of students with a 2:1 degree or above going into teaching has remained fairly stagnant over the past 14 years.

"No-one wants to see teachers attempting to teach subjects that they do not fully grasp themselves," the authors said.

"But if not enough people with the necessary expertise put themselves forward, the difficult question that has to be faced in formulating policy is: is it better to have an able graduate who has not studied a subject at university or someone who has studied the subject at university but not done very well in it?"

The government also plans to expand the Teach First scheme, which fast-tracks high-flying graduates into teaching jobs in inner-city schools.

The report’s authors warned that only half of Teach First alumni are likely to stay on in teaching long-term. "Of the 149 on the scheme in 2005/6, 63 (42%) chose to remain in teaching (which is a plus), but within three years the other 86 had moved on," they said.