Ethnic minority initial teacher education incentive: integrated impact assessment

This proposal concerns the implementation of a new Initial teacher education incentive scheme intended to attract Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority applicants into ITE and the teaching profession.

This policy intervention follows from the previous Minister for Education accepting the recommendations made by the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Communities, Contributions and Cynefin in the New Curriculum Working Group within their final report. Published March 2021 the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, contributions and cynefin in the new curriculum working group final report makes numerous recommendations with regards to the curriculum, resources, professional learning and the workforce including ITE including Recommendation 9: Welsh Government should provide specific scholarships to support Initial Teacher Education students from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups.

Background

The OECD in their report A Flying Start: Improving Initial Teacher Preparation Systems (2019) noted that:

"In many OECD countries, the increasingly diverse student population does not match with a teacher workforce that is largely homogeneous (Nusche, 2009[20]). This is particularly important given the growing literature on the positive effect of same-race teachers on ethnic-minority students in terms of performance, role-modelling, motivation and the overall educational experience of not only ethnic minority students, but of low-income students of both sexes (Gershenson et al., 2017[21])."

In 2019 the Welsh Government commissioned the Education Workforce Council (EWC) to undertake a multi-phase review of evidence about ethnic diversity in the school workforce (Increasing diversity within the school workforce in Wales). The data collected at that time confirmed the OECD report and showed a stark under-representation in the teaching workforce with only 3% of teachers identifying as being from an ethnic minority against a learner population of 12% (EWC, 2020:11, Ethnic minority representation within the school workforce in Wales: Phase 2 report for the Welsh Government.) Data from the Schools workforce annual census from November 2021 showed that only 1.1% were of Black, Asian, Mixed or Other ethnicity.

The conclusions from the first of the EWC’s reports (2020:50) noted that the “Lack of ethnic diversity in the school workforce has been persistently identified as a problem that should be addressed in Wales (Action Plan for Teacher Recruitment and Retention in Wales, GTCW, 2003, Our classrooms must reflect our diverse society, Wales Online, 2013, Racism in schools 'putting off' non-white teachers, BBC News, 2017, Experiences of racism and race in schools in Wales, Wiegand and Cifuentes, 2018). EWC advise that Welsh Government should “Consider providing specific scholarships to support ITE students from ethnic minority groups.” In their final report Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic representation within the school workforce in Wales: Phase 3 report and final recommendations for the Welsh Government, (EWC, 2021) the EWC tested their initial recommendations with stakeholders to finalise them. The final recommendations included: “The Welsh Government should fund a new bursary to encourage students from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds to undertake ITE courses.” (2021:27).

Alongside and in tandem with this work the Welsh Government commissioned Professor Charlotte Williams to chair a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Communities, Contributions and Cynefin in the New Curriculum Working Group in July 2020. The final report of this group was published in March 2021 and included recommendations, based on the available recruitment data, called for more to be done to attract more applicants to ITE programmes from ethnic minorities. These recommendations were accepted by the previous Minister for Education. These included Recommendation 9: Welsh Government should provide specific scholarships to support Initial Teacher Education students from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups.

Welsh Government also commissioned a report via Cardiff Metropolitan University to examine recruitment and retention of teachers from minority ethnic backgrounds in Wales. The recruitment and retention of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic teachers in Wales, a Qualitative Research Study was published in 2021 and drew from the perspectives of learners aged 14 plus, students and teachers from minority ethnic backgrounds, focusing on participants’ perceptions and the lack of diversity in the education workforce in Wales.

There is a clear synergy across the various reports’ findings, evidence, and independent recommendations alongside the need to address the situation urgently. The Initial teacher education Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic recruitment plan was published October 21st 2021 and is intended to take forward the recommendations made under the referenced reports. This plan also sits under and complements the broader work of Welsh Government under the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan.

The Anti-racist Wales Action plan commits to:

• a public sector workforce (which would include teachers) that ‘at least properly represents the population it serves’
• representative and inclusive senior leadership teams and Boards of public bodies
• public bodies using their spending power to improve leadership and representation across the public, private and third sectors

Addressing racial, ethnic, and religious intolerance that is systemic and institutional is one of Welsh Government’s key goals under the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan and forms a part of the wider work Welsh Government is taking forward to ensure future generations can live in a diverse, safe, and cohesive Wales. The recommendations with respect to education within the Race Equality Action Plan were developed with the support of the Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP) who produced evidence reviews for the Welsh Government on Improving race equality in education (WCPP, 2021) and Improving race equality in employment and income (WCPP, 2021).

The WCPP’s education report set out a series of recommendations for the recruitment of a diverse teaching workforce and for training and professional development. These also fed into the Race Equality Action Plan and were largely aligned with the policy ideas and recommendations outlined within the EWC’s reports.

As the Anti-Racist Wales: The Race Equality Action Plan impact assessment notes:

"The roots of inequality often lie in childhood and furthering race equality will improve the life chances of the children of today and tomorrow. Education is a central policy area within the Plan and some of the goals and actions include,… increasing the representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic [teachers] in the workforce and contributions in the curriculum. These goals and actions, along with the others in different policy areas will all directly benefit all children and young people, particularly Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic ones."

There is a clear commitment within the Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan to increase recruitment of teachers from ethnic minority communities into the Education sector including recruitment onto Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes with the plan advising:

"A lack of representation within practitioner and leadership roles, including on governing bodies, does nothing to promote ambition within our children and young people, who need to recognise themselves and their own experiences within their leaders."

The proposal also aligns with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 goal to create a more equal Wales, where everyone has the opportunity to participate, reach their full potential and is able to contribute fully to their own learning and development, enabling Wales to be more prosperous and innovative. As the impact for learners will be increased visibility in the classroom of teachers from ethnic minorities. This will support learners from ethnic minorities in terms of representation but will also increase the awareness of the cultural and racial diversity in Welsh society to all learners (Welsh Government 2021). As the GTCW (2003) notes “there is a need to ensure that more pupils come into contact with individuals from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Teachers from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, as well as making excellent teachers, can also help develop an understanding among pupils of the needs of individuals from different backgrounds.” This is aligned to the aims of the Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan and indirectly supports the Well-being Goal for a Wales of cohesive and safe communities.

Initial teacher incentives in Wales

The implementation of the new curriculum in Wales presents us with specific challenges including ensuring a workforce of sufficient size, quality, and expertise to develop and teach the curriculum and deliver positive impacts for Welsh learners. The success of several Government strategies and ministerial commitments are dependent on ensuring a sufficient supply of teachers and attracting people into the teaching profession as an underpinning assumption in their delivery.

Welsh Government provides financial incentives for specific groups of student teachers where there are poor levels of recruitment and representation in the workforce, the priority subject incentive scheme and the Welsh medium incentive scheme (the Iaith Athrawon Yfory). The primary aim of all Welsh Government’s ITE incentives schemes are to address recruitment issues for ITE and broader shortages in the teaching workforce ensuring an appropriate supply of competent, thoughtful, reflective, and innovative practitioners who are committed to providing high-quality teaching and learning for all learners. They are intended as a recruitment intervention to proportionally address immediate, identifiable shortages in the teaching workforce to support specific, targeted recruitment into ITE. The incentives form a suite enabling eligible student teachers to access multiple incentives where appropriate, those most needed in our education system can receive the highest levels of incentivisation. Students who participate in ITE may also be eligible for a range of financial support packages via their institutions as well as a student grant or loan administered by Student Finance Wales. Access to the ITE incentives does not impact on eligibility for student finance.

The EWC report (2020) showed, via the most recent available data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) (HESA produce official statistics about higher education (HE) in the UK on behalf of their Statutory customers), that the proportion of graduates coming from each of the minority ethnic groups is higher than those entering ITE in Wales “underlining the extent to which those entering the teaching profession are less diverse than the overall cohort group of leavers from Welsh universities.” (2020:24). As noted above the intention of the existing incentive schemes is to tackle recruitment issues for ITE, to attract graduates into ITE, and to address broader shortages in the teaching workforce. This intention aligns with the various reports, evidence reviews, and Government plans detailed above, to address the ongoing poor diversity of student teachers recruited into ITE specifically from ethnic minorities with the aim of addressing the poor levels of ethnic diversity within our teaching workforce in Wales.

We propose that this ‘scholarship’ be structured as an ITE incentive scheme in a similar manner to the Iaith Athrawon Yfory (IAY) Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Incentive Scheme as the IAY scheme has successfully doubled the number of its target applicants within 2 years. This new scheme will form part of this incentivisation package working and aligning with existing arrangements including ongoing development, and strategic fit within Welsh Government’s broader commitments.

As the ITE Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic recruitment plan notes attracting more teachers from ethnic minority communities will require concerted actions across the whole Education sector, by a wide range of organisations, over a period of several years. As such this proposal is one of our short to mid-term actions to support the wider work to address this issue.

The existing IAY scheme encourages applicants to apply for Welsh medium ITE and awards their completion of a PGCE (with QTS) and thereafter their completion of Induction in specific maintained settings in Wales, to retain the talent in Welsh-medium settings as well as ensure the continuation of their professional learning to teach through the medium of Welsh.

The IAY scheme has encouraged eligible students to enter Welsh medium ITE and the numbers coming through the system have increased since its introduction, the proposals could mean a similar trend could occur for minority ethnic student teachers should other aspects under the ITE Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Recruitment plan and the Anti-racist Wales action plan education commitments be addressed and completed in tandem. Please see table below (please note the AY2021/22 period only opened for claims from 1^st August 2022)

Only those claiming the first payment (QTS) are eligible for the second payment.

(1) This number may rise as the deadline has not yet passed

Numbers are rounded to the nearest 5.

The structure and operational delivery of the IAY is subject to a virtuous circle of improvement via engagement with our ITE Partnerships, responsible for directly recruiting student teachers. As such learning in the ongoing development of the IAY can be applied to this new incentive scheme.

The ITE incentive schemes are reviewed annually to determine whether they are targeting the most in need ITE Students / future teachers based on data sets including but not limited to HESA data and the current results of the School Workforce Annual Census (SWAC). This proposal will be included in that annual review.

Legislation

Sections 14 to 17 of the Education Act 2002 enable the Welsh Ministers to give financial assistance for purposes related to education. This includes enabling any person to receive any training for teachers and providing for a person’s maintenance while they undertake such education. The current ITE Incentive Schemes are both subject to subordinate legislation in the form of a ‘legal scheme’ (Teacher training incentive scheme 2021 (2021 WG20-62) and Iaith Athrawon Yfory incentive scheme 2021 to 2022 academic year (2021 WG20-64)). The Ethnic Minority incentive will also require a legal scheme in a similar form. These schemes do not require Senedd scrutiny typically associated with Subordinate Legislation and therefore requires no time on the Senedd’s legislative timetable nor a Regulatory Impact Assessment.

The incentive scheme will be available to all those eligible students who are studying ITE full or part-time and as such operate within, and be subject to, existing ITE requirements and regulations which are placed on ITE providers and ITE students. Providers will be aware of their statutory responsibilities in relation to age, religion and belief (or no religion or belief), disability, gender, sexual orientation and racial equality, and to Welsh language requirements. They need to ensure that their admission policy promotes equality of opportunity and does not discriminate against any group of potential applicants.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have legal requirements to monitor and publish data as part of the public sector equality duty (PSED) of the Equality Act 2010. HEIs have a statutory obligation to submit certain data to the HESA. Currently higher education institutions are required to return data on staff and students’ sex, race/ethnicity, disability, and age as part of their annual staff and student records, and from 2017/18 religion or belief for the student record.

As such all ITE Partnerships in Wales provide data via HESA including data on protected characteristics. As such this data is already collected and is not an additional burden on ITE Students and their Partnerships.

Both the work conducted by EWC (2021:6), Cardiff Metropolitan University (2021) and the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Communities, Contributions and Cynefin in the New Curriculum Working Group (2021:72) which led to this proposal included extensive stakeholder engagement. The methods included meetings, interviews, and focus groups. These included:

• people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010
• Welsh speakers and Welsh language specialist groups
• other people who may be affected by the proposal

Except for the Welsh Children’s Commissioner, the representatives for children were the education professionals consulted during the work. Children were not consulted directly on this specific proposal however learners over the age of 14 were included in the Cardiff Metropolitan research.

The most significant impacts will be the direct positive effect for minority ethnic student teachers. It will also positively impact on ethnic minority communities and their children. The increase of teaching staff from ethnic minorities will promote the profession as an attractive and inclusive one whilst giving greater representation within the teaching workforce. The impact for learners will be increased visibility in the classroom of teachers from ethnic minorities. This will support learners from ethnic minorities in terms of representation but will also increase the awareness of the cultural and racial diversity in Welsh society to all learners. Improving the diversity of ITE students and therefore the teaching workforce will, under the Curriculum for Wales, enable more varied teaching in respect to the diversity of culture, heritage, and traditions in Wales’ communities. In turn learner cultural participation and achievement could be impacted positively, for those learners from diverse communities to supporting an increase in awareness of the cultural and racial diversity in Welsh society to all learners. The proposal may have an indirect positive impact on the Welsh language - there is the potential for an increase of Welsh speakers from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic communities to enter the profession improving existing community use and potentially spreading the use into new communities / multi-lingual communities.

The proposal will support our aims to ensure everyone in Wales has the opportunity to participate, reach their full potential and is able to contribute fully to their own learning and development, enabling Wales to be more prosperous and innovative. It will also support the Well-being Goal for a Wales of cohesive and safe communities.

The impact of the proposal will be monitored through the number of applications and acceptances from ethnic minority students on to ITE programmes. This is gathered monthly from the ITE Partnerships as part of their ongoing processes to monitor levels of recruitment. This is also supported more broadly by official statistics provided by HESA. This will be supplemented by workforce data from EWC on the numbers who are successfully awarded Qualified Teacher Status and complete Induction. Diversity data is also collected on the teaching workforce through the School Workforce Annual Census and the EWC annual workforce census.

All ITE incentive schemes are reviewed annually against the most up to date available data to ascertain whether they are still required to support their targeted recruitment. This proposal will be included. In addition, in conducting the Teacher Planning and Supply model and ITE Programme allocation process in partnership with the EWC, Welsh Government sets a 5% marker for diverse recruitment into ITE to evaluate how Welsh Government and our partners are performing against the ITE Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Recruitment plan. This proposal will be included in this broader work.

Describe and explain the impact of the proposal on children and young people

Increasing the representation of people from minority ethnic communities within the teaching workforce in schools will have a positive impact on children and young people as outlined and described in Welsh Government’s Anti-racist Wales Action Plan (2021) and it’s supporting evidence base (WCPP reports), and EWC’s 2020 and 2021 report findings (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic representation within the school workforce in Wales). However, this proposal is directly related to student teachers so the positive impacts as noted above are not direct and will take some time to come into effect.

Explain how the proposal is likely to impact on children’s rights

The programme may positively and indirectly impact on the following articles:

Article 3 (best interests of the child) The best interests of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect children.

Article 29 (goals of education) Education must develop every child’s personality, talents and abilities to the full. It must encourage the child’s respect for human rights, as well as respect for their parents, their own and other cultures, and the environment.

Article 30 (children from minority or indigenous groups) Every child has the right to learn and use the language, customs and religion of their family, whether or not these are shared by the majority of the people in the country where they live.

In June the impact assessment was reviewed and updated. This follows changes made to the Minority Ethnic incentive legal scheme AY22/23. 

Two changes are made to the legal scheme for AY23/24. The changes are based on a recent review of the first year of the scheme’s operation. These changes are the inclusion of two additional ethnicities eligible for the incentive scheme:

• White: Jewish
• Other ethnic group: Kurdish