Teacher Education – Training Places for 2015/16

Teacher Education – Training Places for 2015/16

In October our friends from the Cultural Learning Alliance[1] alerted NATD to the fact that the numbers for the ITT allocations DfE released …..(seem to be ) up by 45% for Drama from 245 for 2014/15 to 447 for 2015/16.

Of course this appears to be very encouraging evidence that recent lobbying has, in concrete terms, paid off.

The initial allocations of ITE training places were released on the UK government website on the 14^th October. This is the first time that they have been published in this way. The figures reveal that there is a real increase in provider led places (what we used to know as the PGCE), as well as in School Direct places.

Drama –   2014/15    School Direct – 144,   Provider led – 101 ,       Total = 245

Drama – 2015/16

Not only is it encouraging seeing a real increase. It also heartening to notice that universities and schools are still requesting places, thus indicating that Drama is seen by teacher educators as important.

On closer inspection, however, there are some worrying questions that need answering.

For example, there are 36 institutions offering provider led places. How many of these have already been irretrievably damaged by the destabilising effect of the whirlwind of inconsistencies and political barbarism that has characterised the recent cuts to University teacher training programmes? What quality of provision will there be for future teachers of Drama?

For a fuller discussion of this please see the editorial in the forthcoming issue of The Journal for Drama in Education (January 2015)

[1] http://www.culturallearningalliance.org.uk/