English, maths and science teacher training applications all drop by a quarter

And the number of applicants wanting to train to teach history has almost halved since last year

4th January 2018, 12:27pm

The number of trainees for English, maths and science has dropped by around a quarter since last year.

And the number of history trainees dropped by almost 50 per cent, according to data from the university admissions service, Ucas.

These figures include the number of applicants to specialise in subjects either individually or in combination with another subject.

The data showed that:

The biggest drops were in citizenship and design and technology (systems control), both of which had applications fall by 67 per cent between December 2016 and December 2017.
The number of applicants wanting to teach English fell by 25 per cent.
Maths applications fell by 28 per cent.
Science applications fell by 23 per cent.
History was particularly hard hit, with a drop of 46 per cent in the number of applications.
There were 52 per cent fewer applicants for social science this year.
And 47 per cent fewer people were interested in teaching psychology.
Music also had a large decrease in applicants, by 45 per cent.
Art (including art and design) received 37 per cent fewer applicants than last year.
Applicants to teach European languages fell by 27 per cent.
French was the European language worst affected, with a drop of 29 per cent.
Only one subject had an increase in the number of applicants. The number of applications for ICT rose from 10 in 2016 to 20 this year: an increase of 100 per cent.
The number of applications for special educational needs teaching remained the same.