To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the UK's withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme on the number of modern foreign language teachers in the UK.
Answered on
5 February 2021
The Department does not collect or hold information on the proportion of qualified modern foreign language (MFL) teachers in England that have taken part in the Erasmus+ scheme.
The Turing scheme, which replaces the UK’s participation in Erasmus+, will be backed by at least £100 million, providing funding for around 35,000 students in universities, colleges, and schools to go on placements and exchanges overseas, starting in September 2021. The scheme will be global and not limited to the European Union. The Turing scheme will be available to students of all subjects, including those studying degrees in MFL. Further details of the scheme will be published shortly.
Alongside the Turing scheme, the Government remains committed to ensuring pupils have access to high quality languages provision and that we continue to attract, retain, and develop the high quality languages teachers we need. To support MFL teacher recruitment, we are offering a £10,000 bursary for MFL trainees starting initial teacher training (ITT) in the 2021/22 academic year. We have also confirmed that ITT providers will be able to offer subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) courses to support MFL candidates for the academic year 2020/21 from April 2021. SKE courses are designed to help ITT applicants gain the depth of subject knowledge they need to train to teach their chosen subject.