The co-founder of a teacher training charity said its funding “shouldn’t be left to philanthropists” after it secured its future with almost £1m in emergency funding.

In April, Now Teach said the cancellation of a £1.4m Department for Education contract could lead to its “extinction” as the charity was set to lose half of its funding.

The charity has supported more than 1,000 professionals to tackle shortage subjects such as maths, physics and foreign languages.

From September, there would have been no provision to recruit and retain trainee teachers in business and science. 

But the charity said this week that it can continue operating after securing £968,000 in short-term emergency funding to restart the hiring of 250 Stem subject teachers and support them through training.

Now Teach applicants can now register for an autumn 2025 start.

“While some funding pledges have been made for the following year, a substantial ‘DfE-shaped’ income gap remains going forward,” the charity said.

“Now Teach plans changes to increase efficiencies and reduce costs while introducing a more flexible programme with tighter entry criteria.

“It remains hopeful about sustainable growth for the longer term.”

Graihagh Crawshaw-Sadler, chief executive of Now Teach, said the charity was fearing the worst in April when its government contract was cancelled.

She said: “But that scenario is looking less likely now thanks to the generosity of supporters and a healthy number of future teachers registering to train in September 2025.

“With the new government’s commitment to transforming life chances, breaking down barriers and a costed manifesto pledge to hire more teachers, it seems obvious that career changers must be a part of that ambition.

“Now Teach would account for just 0.3 per cent of their manifesto’s recruitment budget and we intend to feed into the DfE’s long-term thinking on career changers in education.

“Our hope would be for our new plans to be a part of that. We want to continue raising the status of teaching for career changers, so they become an important and permanent part of the policy landscape.”

Lucy Kellaway, co-founder of Now Teach, said finding teachers should be something any government supports.

She said: “This shouldn’t be left to philanthropists. 

“The fact we have raised these funds in such a short space of time illustrates how shortsighted the DfE’s decision was to axe our funding.

“However, bridging funding is just that and long-term state support is needed to keep momentum. 

“We have survived the final thoughtless swinging axe of a departing government, but I have hope that new ideas and ambition from a reinvigorated DfE can help us bring more brilliant minds and experience into the classroom for young people.”