Students taking the Professional Graduate Diploma in Education are twice as likely to drop out as postgraduate students overall, according to new figures, prompting calls for more rigorous selection on to courses.

The figures, obtained by TESS, show that 5.6 per cent of 2,305 people studying for the PGDE in Scotland - the most popular route into teaching - dropped out in 2014-15.

This compared with an overall dropout rate of 2.8 per cent among all postgraduate students studying at Scottish universities that year - the most recent period for which figures are available.

However, the figures compiled by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) also show that teacher education undergraduates in Scotland are more likely to stay the course, with 1.8 per cent dropping out compared with 3.2 per cent on undergraduate courses generally (see tables, below).

Significant impact on schools

The high PGDE dropout rate represents a waste of public money and has a significant impact on the schools system at a time of acute staff shortages, said John Stodter, general secretary of the education directors’ body ADES.

He called for a selection process for teacher education courses that matches prospective teachers to the job, looking not just at academic qualifications but everything from social skills, to resilience and enthusiasm.

“We know there are several hundred unfilled teaching vacancies in Scotland. Every student that drops out is one fewer teacher in the classroom at the end of the day,” Mr Stodter said.

The PGDE is “a difficult year” and some students find themselves “overwhelmed” by the workload, according to Morag Redford, head of education at the University of the Highlands and Islands and chair of the Scottish Council of Deans of Education.

Students embarking on the PGDE find it difficult to maintain a normal personal and social life, she added.

However, she said her experience was that changes in personal circumstances were also often to blame for people dropping out.

“If students have personal issues we do our best to support them to remain on the course, but for a lot it’s just an overwhelming ‘My goodness, this is a lot harder than I thought’,” Dr Redford said.

She also suggested that money could be a factor. The cost of the PGDE is often covered by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland. According to the SAAS, in 2015-16 2,019 students undertaking the PGDE received support with their fees totalling £3.7 million.

This support is vital to get enough aspiring teachers on to the courses, but it might also have a bearing on students’ willingness to drop out if they are struggling, Dr Redford suggested.

However, she stressed that universities were getting better at supporting students and that dropout rates were improving - falling from 7.4 per cent back in 2009-10 for those on teacher education courses, in line with an overall drop.

She also suggested that communication between universities and schools could be improved. Students on the PGDE spend 50 per cent of their time in schools on placement and 50 per cent of their time in university.

Sue Ellis, a literacy expert at the University of Strathclyde who teaches student teachers, argued that the drop-out rate was a positive sign because it showed that students were figuring out at an early stage that teaching was not for them.

“I suspect that if they sign up, and then find they don’t enjoy working with kids, they leave. It is a positive thing - working out if this is the career for them,” she said.

“Other postgrad courses are possibly less vocational and the work is more similar to an academic undergraduate experience.”

Separately, Hesa last week published its latest figures on student enrolments and qualifications obtained in higher education.

The figures show that 3,055 students were enrolled at Scottish universities to study education full-time at postgraduate level in 2015-16, and 5,015 were enrolled to study education part-time.

The statistics showed that the number of students enrolling to study on higher education courses at colleges in the UK had dropped for the first time in five years.

Scotland’s colleges, however, bucked the UK trend, with the number of enrolments on HE courses rising slightly between 2014-15 and 2015-16.

While there were 48,715 enrolments in total in 2014-15, there were 49,890 the following year. Both part-time and full-time enrolments showed a year-on-year increase.

@Emma_Seith