Schools plan falters

School-centred teacher training providers, which exclude higher education, are not as effective as traditional school-university partnerships, the chief inspector of schools Chris Woodhead said in his annual report this week.

The fledgling School-Centred Initial Teacher Training schemes, run by school consortia, have been hailed by Teacher Training Agency chief Anthea Millet as "a genuine option for those schools wishing to take the lead in planning and deciding the most appropriate training for would-be teachers". They also receive a higher funding level than universities.

But Mr Woodhead said: "Trainees recruited to SCITT schemes are on average less well-qualified than those in traditional partnerships." The SCITTs "have in general more difficulty in meeting the recruitment targets set by the TTA", he said.