Written question WQ93109

The Welsh Government offers a range of incentives to attract applicants into initial teacher education (ITE) in Wales. These schemes 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 was 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 data available shows there is a need to attract more Religious Education (RE) students into Initial Teacher Education, we will consider this alongside existing priorities.

The Welsh Government is working in partnership with the Wales Association of Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education (WASACRE) and religious education practitioners across Wales to develop a suite of modules to support practitioners with the changes to religion, values and ethics (RVE) (formerly Religious Education), within the Curriculum for Wales.

We are also continuing to work with WASACRE and other partners to explore the opportunities available to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of suitably qualified RE and RVE teachers available to deliver the Curriculum for Wales.