DfE to build digital tool to recruit trainee teachers

Platform will replace existing application service run by UCAS

Credit: Bart Everson/CC BY 2.0

The Department for Education is to build a new digital service for the recruitment of trainee teachers.

The online platform through which people currently apply for teacher training is run by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). This is to be replaced by a system to be built and run by the DfE.

“Over the years it has become increasingly difficult to recruit and retain high-quality teachers. However, demand continues to grow,” the department said. “Despite the high interest in joining the profession, not enough people progress to making an application and the process to become a teacher is complicated and burdensome.”


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It added: “To help meet this challenge, DfE has decided to develop a new apply service for postgraduate teacher training… this will be a DfE-owned and run service that will eventually replace the UCAS initial teacher training application service.”

The DfE intends to create a service that uses an API to plug directly into universities’ student records systems, thereby providing a “seamless experience” for applicants.

Before work commences in earnest, the department is looking to engage with software vendors who can advise on how the department should best approach the task of delivering “a viable data transfer mechanism”.

The DfE is inviting any tech vendors that supply student record systems to attend a two-hour “technical forum” being hosted by the department in Vauxhall in London on 26 September. Companies in attendance will gain a more detailed insight into the department’s plans, and will be able to put their questions to government officials.

 

Sam Trendall

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