The Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, has announced a five-year, $22.5 million grant to help major research universities train science and math teachers.

The grant will enable the National Math and Science Initiative to expand its UTeach Program to an additional ten universities. Developed at the University of Texas at Austin, UTeach has been implemented by thirty-four universities in sixteen states and enrolled more than sixty-two hundred students over the last five years. The program is on track to train ten thousand new math and science teachers by 2020.

According to NMSI, about 85 percent of certified UTeach graduates go on to teach at the K-12 level in math, science, or computer science. About 70 percent of UTeach teachers remain in the profession after five years, compared with less than 50 percent nationally.

The grant from HHMI is aimed at schools classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as having "very high" or "high" research activity and includes $20 million to help universities implement the program, $1.25 million in support of curriculum development and program assessment efforts, and $1.25 million to support schools that choose to adopt HHMI's successful Science Education Alliance PHAGES laboratory course, a national year-long course that engages undergraduates in authentic research.

"The UTeach program is regarded as the national leader in preparing math and science undergraduates to become math and science teachers," said HHMI president Robert Tjian. "This initiative will help NMSI scale up the UTeach program, and it has the potential to significantly expand the number of students enrolled in UTeach over the next five years."