AQW 22362/22-27

Ms Kellie Armstrong
Alliance Party
Strangford

Tabled Date: 11/02/2025
Answered On Date: 19/02/2025
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Education to detail how the number of higher education teacher training places, requested by the Department of Education for the new academic year starting September 2025, compares to the number of teaching jobs expected to be available in Northern Ireland in 2028.

Answer:

In Northern Ireland, full-time Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) Initial Teacher Education (ITE) courses are one year in duration, while Bachelor of Education (BEd) ITE courses are four years. This means that student teachers commencing a BEd ITE course in September 2025 would qualify in 2029.

Each year, my Department sets the overall intake numbers for ITE programmes in Northern Ireland. This process is informed by the Teacher Demand Model (TDM), which projects primary and post-primary teacher vacancies in future years to estimate the necessary intakes into ITE. However, the TDM is only one of several factors considered in decision-making, providing an indicative figure for the upcoming academic year and the subsequent year.

Effective workforce planning is crucial to ensuring that Northern Ireland has an education workforce of the right size, with the right skills and structured effectively to deliver the best possible education for our children and young people. My Department, along with colleagues in the Education Authority, is currently developing an education workforce strategy to address these long-term needs. In particular, we will put in place medium and long-term strategic monitoring of teacher supply to anticipate and remediate issues and also review how best to attract high quality graduates to subject shortage areas.