Initial teacher training (ITT) applications have dropped below pre-pandemic levels in 2019, sparking fears for teaching supply.
Economist Jack Worth, from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), who completed the analysis using data from Ucas, said that the data is a warning over the future of teacher supply.
Data shows that between May and September 2021, the number of new applications to postgraduate ITT programmes in England was just 25,500 - 15 per cent lower than the 30,000 that applied the summer before the pandemic.
More than 45,000 applications were made during the summer of 2020.
Speaking at the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT) annual conference this week, Mr Worth said: “This is particularly concerning because it’s not only reverting to pre-Covid, but actually being a bit more competitive than even before that.
“If that is continued into next year, we’re facing a really difficult year.”
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Mr Worth cited a resurgence in the “wider labour market” as a reason for the “slowdown.”
“If we have an underlying recruitment environment similar to 2019, but without the level of bursaries that were in place in 2019, then that’s potentially concerning,” he said.
Applications had previously “surged” in 2020 because of career changes during the pandemic, reaching an average of 566 applications a day in January 2021.
However, in June of this year, data showed a dip below 2019 levels for the first time.
Headteachers recently warned that the surge in ITT applications was over, and voiced concerns that there could be a mass “exodus” of leaders from the profession after the pandemic.
Mr Worth warned that the labour market recovery was also “likely to impact on retention”.
“I fear we may be returning to the kind of teacher supply challenges we were facing in 2019-2020,” he said. “This is something that it is important for policy to respond to, in order to make sure we don’t fall into that trap we were in before of inadequate response, and therefore running the risk of increasing shortages within the school system.”
