Why ethnic minorities withdraw from ITT courses

The research included recommendations for the TDA, ITT providers and placement schools. The research assisted the TDA in meeting its operational objective to enable providers to recruit and retain to ITT sufficient numbers of high-quality trainees from under-represented groups.

This research focused on minority ethnic trainees and had the following objectives:

• To identify the key factors leading to withdrawal from ITT courses by minority ethnic trainees
• To quantify withdrawals and completion from both postgraduate and undergraduate level in ITT courses for 2000/01, 2001/02 (and, where available, 2002/03) of minority ethnic trainees
• To explore the factors leading to withdrawal from ITT courses from non-minority ethnic trainees, in order to compare and contrast the factors influencing both groups (ie. minority ethnic and non-minority ethnic)
• To establish from each group, the trainees’ perceptions of difficulties they faced, and the factors influencing their decision to withdraw
• To recommend strategies, for consideration by the TDA, for minimising drop-out rates among minority ethnic trainees.

This research aimed to build on an earlier study commissioned by the TDA in 2001 which looked at the wider issue of withdrawals from ITT courses at PGCE level.

Quantitative and qualitative information was collected, however it must be stressed that care should be taken in generalising the findings from the sample accessed by this research. The sample included 34 ITT institutions, 99 minority ethnic trainees who withdrew from their ITT course, 85 majority ethnic trainees who withdrew from their ITT course and 17 minority ethnic trainees who completed their ITT course. The TDA believes the recommendations are practical and reasonable.

Findings from this research were disseminated to providers of ITT courses at the twice-yearly ITT provider conferences hosted by the TDA. This has enabled ITT providers to reflect on the implications of the findings for their courses. This also highlights the need to ensure that such projects do not finish at the completion of the research but that dissemination and the interpretation of findings is a key part of the process. An executive summary of this research is available for download.