Graduate Secondary School teachers in £20, 000 bursary

Graduates will be enticed into teaching via a £20,000 bursary it has emerged today.

It is hoped that the bursary will help to improve teaching standards by attracting the top graduates across the country.

According to the Daily Telegraph, it will see students with a first-class degree offered a tax-free bursary to teach in secondary schools.

Education Secretary Michael Gove is hoping to attract specialist teachers with Maths, Physics and Chemistry being targeted.

West Yorkshire Teacher, Anna Harrison believes that the suggestions may work but they plans must be approached cautiously: “A lot of people go into teaching because they genuinely love teaching kids whereas with this massive bursary, it could attract the wrong kind of teacher.”

The plan would see the bursary scaled down dependent on the graduates final degree classification. A graduate with a 2.1 would be eligible for £15, 000 whilst someone with a 2.2 degree would get £11, 000.

Leeds Trinity University College’s associate lecturer in professional development for Education believes that there are other ways to incentivize secondary school teaching, “Writing off university fees for those who have been teaching for five or ten years is a creative way to look at it.

“If you want attract the best people into teaching then you should be looking to extending incentives across the curriculum not just maths and physics.”

Although the plans are at an initial phase and teachers across the country have been sent consultation plans.