Essex tops teacher training survey - graduate jobs

An educational consortium providing graduate training schemes has demolished the regional stereotype which depicts Essex girls as lowbrow underachievers.

Billericay Educational Consortium school-centred initial teacher training, which trains teachers in Essex schools, has beaten its Oxbridge rivals to be named the best place for teacher training in England in the Good Teacher Training Guide 2011.

The Essex graduate training hub topped the influential annual report's rankings, ahead of Oxford University in second and third-placed Cambridge.

The consortium is comprised of specialists from Essex primary schools who work together to train up to 25 teachers a year for a post-graduate certificate of education from the Open University

The league table was based on Ofsted ratings, the number of trainees who take up teaching jobs and the required entry qualifications.

"The Billericay Educational Consortium has particularly high entry qualifications because there is so much competition to get in," said report author Professor Alan Smithers of Buckingham University's Centre for Education and Employment Research.

Copyright Press Association 2011