Further to WQ97717, will the Cabinet Secretary consider introducing financial incentives for suitably qualified graduates to train to teach religious education, as is already the case in other subjects with a shortage?
The Welsh Government offers a range of incentives to attract applicants into initial teacher education (ITE) in Wales.
Within the constraints of available budgets these schemes are delivered are targeted at those areas and subjects where recruitment is most challenging; priority subjects, the Welsh medium sector and attracting more entrants from ethnic minorities. At present Religious Education is not a subject area where the statistics have indicated there is a need to incentivise to recruit student teachers.
We review the Priority Subject Incentives scheme annually and amend the scheme, including the subjects classified as ‘priority’, to meet our ITE and workforce requirements. If the available data shows there is a need for an incentive to attract more Religious Education (RE) students into Initial Teacher Education we will consider this alongside existing priorities.