Future bleak for four-year BEds

Experts are warning there is no future for four-year undergraduate teacher training courses in primary education. They say new funding regimes for initial teacher training are the final nail in the coffin of primary BEd programmes in universities and higher education colleges.

Latest figures show the number of applications for primary BEd courses has dropped by nearly 25 per cent over the past two years.

Interest in the BEd has been declining steadily, but the introduction of tuition fees, which must be paid for four years on a BEd course but are waived for one-year postgraduate teacher training courses, has accelerated the trend.

The fall comes despite an extra Pounds 20 million from the Teacher Training Agency for teacher training overall to help offset the impact of fees.

Now a working group set up by the TTA to review funding from next year has rejected an option to give a cash boost to primary undergraduate training, which receives the lowest level of resources and Pounds 1,000 per student less than primary postgraduate.

The news will worry heads of many higher education colleges, which rely heavily on primary undergraduate training to make up their student numbers.

John Howson, a teacher training consultant who has analysed the trend, predicted this week that the government would put further pressure on the BEd as it emerged that poorly qualified students were being admitted onto BEds at the expense of the better qualified who are being turned away from postgraduate certificate in education courses, which fill quickly.

"Some institutions with BEd courses are scrabbling around at the bottom of the pile of poorly qualified applicants to fill their courses. The question has to be asked whether they are providing us with the best quality teachers. The answer has to be no," he said.

But Patricia Ambrose, chief executive of the Standing Conference of Principals, said the BEd had helped widen participation among mature and ethnic minority students, as well as providing a comprehensive training programme.

"Probably what is needed is a new approach to primary training that gives the breadth and depth needed at that level," she said.