Concern is growing over bursaries that will be awarded to students who train to teach in certain subjects, and ones that have been scrapped.
The government has announced a series of bursaries and scholarships for education courses where most teachers are needed.
Sciences, Mathematics, Computing, Languages, Geography and Design & Technology – are where the bursaries are focused.
Scholarships are also available for Chemistry, Physics and Computing.
Just days after the announcement, bursaries for students training to teach Religious Education were scrapped – with them no longer being offered from 2026.
Dr Matt McLain, Senior Lecturer at the School of Education at Liverpool John Moores University said: “Religious education has struggled to recruit to similar levels as Design and Technology and similar to Physics as well.”
“I think the biggest problem is not whether the bursary works or not, it’s what messages it sends to applicants. If you remove the bursary, or you reduce it, then basically what you’re saying is this subject is less important,” he added.
Despite the benefits to students, professionals are unsure whether bursaries actually have the desired impact.
Dr McLain said: “Has it actually improved or increased the numbers of applicants into initial teacher training? There’s not really much data to support there being a positive impact across the board.”
Bursaries in some subjects may also draw applicants away from others.
“We’ve not seen anyone with an engineering background come to try and teach Design and Technology at Liverpool John Moores and probably across the sector, since those higher bursaries were available where they could go and teach physics or maths or computer science,” said Dr McLain.
Bursaries are designed to help with living expenses, equipment and other financial costs. Although not everyone is convinced that they help as much as possible.
Gillian Smith, who taught in Merseyside schools for 27 years, said: “Bursaries will help but only in small part given the cost of further education.
“Even if awarded the full amount, that is only £10,000 a year for a three year course. I’m not certain of the amount of debt accumulated now from attending university, but less than £1,000 a month would not help much given living costs.”
The new bursaries are non-application based, meaning that if a student teacher qualifies, they will receive the money once they start their training.
Scholarships are provided by organisations who work to increase the numbers of new teachers in their subject.
Neither option is available for salaried teacher training, and trainees can only get one or the other.
Last week, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “This is about making sure teaching is a really attractive place for people to come, and for people to stay.”
“We need to make it seem a more attractive job for people, but also then keeping people in within the first five years of teaching,” said Dr McLain.