In a letter to David Laws, minister of state for schools, James Noble-Rogers, executive director of the Universities¡¯ Council for the Education of Teachers (Ucet) says his organisation is ¡°extremely concerned¡± that a breakdown of allocations for 2014-15 has not been released.
He says the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) had withheld both a breakdown by either ¡°phase or secondary subject¡± and individual providers¡¯ allocations following the release of provisional figures on 1 November.
¡°This information has been published as a matter of course in the past,¡± he writes. ¡°The only apparent reason it should now be kept secret is to prevent a timely and legitimate analysis of data before allocations are finalised.
¡°It should not be necessary in an open democracy for Ucet or anyone else to resort to legislation to obtain information of this kind.¡±
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He adds that he is submitting a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act for the release of figures, should the NCTL fail to relent and provide the data.
Mr Noble-Rogers also says the allocation of places ¨C which have showed a 14.5 per cent drop in core numbers going to university providers ¨C shows the Department for Education had failed to take into account ¡°pragmatic and constructive¡± suggestions made by Ucet in previous letters and in evidence to MPs. He writes that this was in spite of the fact that the suggestions ¡°appeared to be welcomed at the time¡±.
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In response, the DfE said that detailed allocations ¨C including a breakdown by subject ¨C will be published ¡°in the next few weeks once they have been confirmed by universities and schools¡±.
¡°School Direct is proving very popular with both trainees and schools. Last year three candidates applied for every School Direct place, compared with 1.8 applicants per place in universities,¡± a DfE spokesperson said.
¡°Universities remain integral to teacher training. Higher education institutions are involved in 82 per cent of teacher training overall.¡±
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