£24 million to strengthen further education workforce

A £24 million package of support is being made available to further education providers so they can recruit, retain and develop excellent teachers.

The investment will bolster the FE workforce, helping to deliver the government’s commitment to level up skills and opportunity across the country.

It includes £11 million to provide bursaries and grants worth up to £26,000 to attract talented people to train to teach in FE, in priority subject areas such as STEM, English and SEND teaching.

A £10 million boost to expand the government’s successful Taking Teaching Further programme, delivered in partnership with sector body the Education and Training Foundation (ETF), which sees industry professionals working in sectors such as engineering and computing to retrain as further education teachers. The scheme has already supported over 100 people to work in FE across the country so far. This additional funding will support up to 550 more people to train to teach a range of technical subjects in 2020.

£3 million for high-quality mentor training programmes, designed and delivered by the ETF to support FE teachers – including those in the important early years of their careers – to develop and progress.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said: "Our ambitions for a world-beating technical education system can only be achieved if we have outstanding teachers who will inspire the next generation.

"I’ve seen first-hand just how much brilliant work is already going on up and down the country. I want to thank the many thousands of further education teachers doing fantastic jobs and changing lives.

"This investment is a clear signal of the government’s commitment to helping the FE sector to continue to recruit and retain excellent teachers who will help to unlock their students’ full potential."