More men training to be primary school teachers, research suggests

New analysis conducted by the Good Teacher Training Guide 2015 has found that more men are training to be primary schools teachers, although fewer are entering secondary schools.

The data, produced by the Centre for Education and Employment Research (CEER), suggests that the proportion of men in postgraduate routes for primary teaching has increased since 1998 from 14 to 17 per cent. However, it also found that the number of men training to be secondary teachers has dropped by eight per cent.

The research showed the proportion of trainees from ethnic minorities has increased substantially over the same period in both secondary and primary routes. It also suggests a higher rate of older trainee primary teachers with 41 per cent aged 25 and over in 2015 compared to 37 per cent in 2000.

CEER also named the North East Partnership school centred initial teacher training (SCITT) as the best postgraduate teacher training provider this year. The research outlined that trainees on school-led programmes are more likely to be male than those on higher education institute (HEI) courses.

Professor Alan Smithers of the CEER said: “These findings are promising for the government as it seeks to move, as it said in its White Paper last week, ‘to an increasingly school-led ITT system’.

“The quality of teacher training in schools emerges as higher in both inspectors’ grades and recent trainees’ ratings. More of the trainees also became teachers.”