Diversification of the post graduate recruitment markets: emerging opportunities for PGCE science and maths recruitment

• Main Author: Maringe, Felix (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2006.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext; Get fulltext

 Recruitment to Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) science and maths training programmes in university schools of education departments possess serious challenges and does little to ameliorate the persistent shortage of secondary school teachers in these subjects. The one size fits all approach suited to traditional recruitment markets in undergraduate programmes for these subjects fails to recognise the growing diversity in the types of students currently undertaking training in these subjects. Using questionnaires with current students, interviews with programme tutors and analysis of marketing documents and websites, the research has identified five distinct market segments which require differentiated marketing and recruitment strategies to help institutions meet their recruitment targets. The findings suggest that PGCE training departments need to recognise the increasing diversity in their recruitment markets, employ segmentation strategies to understand these potential markets and develop suitable strategies for engaging more proactively with these new markets in the increasingly competitive HE marketplace.