Swinney admits teacher training cuts were a mistake

EDUCATION Secretary John Swinney yesterday admitted the Scottish Government blundered over cuts to teacher training places.

Trainee intake targets were slashed by more than 1,500 after the SNP took power – despite warnings it could cause ‘irreparable damage’ to the education system.

Figures show there are now 700 teaching vacancies, which will take at least three years to fill. There are 4,000 fewer teachers and 1,000 fewer support staff than when the SNP became the government ten years ago.

Under questioning from Holyrood’s Education Committee, Mr Swinney yesterday admitted that teacher numbers were ‘probably overcorrected’ by his predecessor, Mike Russell, in 2010. Mr Swinney said that at the time, there was a ‘high level of teacher unemployment’.

But he was forced to admit that the ‘statistical model’ used to set training targets in 2010 had resulted in a chronic shortage of teachers.

Addressing committee members, who have been examining teaching workforce levels, Mr Swinney said: ‘The model obviously was recalibrated to take into account the fact teachers couldn’t get employment at that time, and our desire was to make sure that teachers could get employment.

‘There has been quite a variation in the intake levels but they have been affected by the surplus of teachers being able to secure employment’.

He added: ‘Clearly with the benefit of hindsight the intake numbers in 2011 were probably overcorrected too far, but judgments were made at that time based on the level of teacher unemployment.’

Scottish Tory education spokesman Liz Smith said: ‘This admission tells us the SNP is completely at sea when it comes to teacher workforce planning.

‘Mr Swinney’s predecessors got it all wrong several years ago, which then forced a cut to the number of teacher training places and now schools all over Scotland cannot fill the gaps.’

During the 2005-06 academic year, before the SNP came to power, the target intake of trainee teachers was 4,437. The number dropped to 3,857 in 2009-10 to 2,307 in 2010-11 – a loss of 1,550 places.

Even Nationalist MSPs called into question the party’s record.

The SNP’s Gillian Martin told the committee: ‘We heard certain local authorities were not putting class cover in place – they were expecting teachers would cover classes because they weren’t putting supply teachers in place for a couple of weeks.

‘There are workload issues around headteachers having to cover classes because they can’t get supply.’

Mr Swinney’s admission comes only weeks after the SNP was accused of failing children.

Fewer than half of pupils aged 13 and 14 are performing well in writing, the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy has revealed.

The proportion of S2 pupils failing to achieve the most basic standards of writing has more than doubled in four years to 16 per cent.

‘Completely at sea over workforce planning’