The Scottish Government and COSLA have “missed opportunities and lost momentum” in dealing with the mounting crisis in the recruitment and retention of teachers, members at the Scotland Annual Conference of NASUWT-The Teachers’ Union, will argue today.

Official figures show that teacher numbers fell for the first time last year since 2016 and almost 40% of places on the most popular route into secondary teaching were unfilled, with well over half of places vacant in subjects such as maths, science and computing.

Members at the Conference in Aberdeen will argue that along with the problems in recruitment, ministers and employers have put too little focus on efforts to retain teachers. They will point to the failure to fully implement the recommendations from the Independent Panel on Career Pathways for Teachers, published in 2019, which they will argue provided an opportunity to create a welcome culture change in how teachers progress and advance their careers.

Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT General Secretary, said:

“The Scottish Government has talked tough this year about introducing financial sanctions on local authorities if they failed to maintain teacher/pupil ratios. But the reality is that the Scottish Government’s persistent under-funding of education, along with the failure to tackle excessive teacher workload, serious violence and abuse from pupils and the real-terms erosion of salaries has led to the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention.

“Ministers have failed take the opportunity to put in place the positive and progressive recommendations from the Independent Panel, which if implemented fully, would have provided a wider range of pathways for teachers to develop their careers, making a job in teaching more attractive and sustainable for both new recruits and experienced teachers.

“Without a recommitment from government and employers to these principles, schools are going to find it even tougher to recruit and retain the teachers needed to maintain our children’s education.”

Mike Corbett, NASUWT National Official Scotland, said:

“The current crisis in teacher recruitment and retention is the result of a short-sighted and short-termist approach to securing the supply of teachers.

“The latest figures from the Scottish Government indicate that just 1 in 32 local authorities successfully offered more permanent contracts than temporary placement to post-probation teachers last year.

“This is a failure to invest in the future of the profession.

“The impact of insecure employment, spiralling workloads and declining working conditions are playing out in our schools every day as they find it harder and harder to fill vacancies. Ultimately, it is pupils who are paying the price and that cost will only get bigger unless Ministers and employers show some ambition for our education system.”