Teacher supply and Covid-19

To avoid the negative effects of entering the labour market during a recession many graduates decide to defer entry into the labour market by enrolling into postgraduate study. One of the beneficiaries to this increase in demand for education are Initial Teacher Training Programmes. If we assume that Covid-19 affects graduates in a similar way to the 2008 crisis, but is less persistent, then we would expect roughly 1,800 more graduates to become teachers over the next two years. While this increase might seem modest compared to the 30,000 graduates who enrol into teacher training each year it is important to remember that policymakers have missed recruitment targets by nearly 3,000 places in recent years.