The Department for Education is looking to hire a pool of initial teacher training (ITT) “associates” - paid up to £650-a-day - to support its controversial shake-up of the sector.
The “market quality associates” will work to help ensure a “smooth market exit” of teacher training providers who are unsuccessful in getting reaccredited and the transfer of trainees to other providers.
The advisers will also support successful providers to deliver “high-quality design, content and delivery” of ITT from the 2024-25 academic year.
The new contract for these associates comes after the DfE announced controversial plans requiring all teacher training providers to be reaccredited in order to continue recruiting.
New documents advertising the contract for a pool of ITT associates say they will receive an “umbrella rate of up to £650 per day” depending on their skills and experience.
However, the contract is based on zero hours and applicants have been informed there will be no guarantee of work.
What will the role involve?
DfE documents say the new associates will be expected to support providers and their “readiness” to deliver the new ITT criteria, in some cases “providing coaching support where necessary”.
These individuals will be expected to assess the quality of ITT provision with individual providers, and provide coaching and mentoring “to support and instil a culture of continuous improvement”.
The ITT market quality associates will also be able to “monitor” and “intervene” in “non-compliant provision”, as well as “oversee provision expansion in target areas”.
They will also “mitigate ITT sufficiency risks through evaluation and effective reporting of sector issues and trends”.
The plan to require all ITT providers to apply for reaccreditation was announced last year as the government published the outcomes of its major ITT review.
There was a backlash against this from the sector with the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT), an organisation representing more than 200 teacher training providers across the country, warning of “a catastrophic risk to the teacher supply chain” as a result of the plans to shake up the market.
The DfE announced in December it was pushing back its plans by a year, meaning teacher trainees will now not start newly reformed courses until September 2024.
Teacher training providers need to apply for accreditation in one of at least two application rounds taking place this year.
ITT providers that applied in the first round are currently awaiting the results of their accreditation application.
The market quality associates will also be expected to contribute to “wider teacher recruitment initiatives” such as the international qualified teacher status (iQTS) pilot.
The pilot is set to launch in September 2022 and will see five ITT providers deliver the iQTS qualification.
