Hundreds of teaching roles readvertised by Dundee City Council

RECRUITMENT: Vacancies proving difficult to fill

Hundreds of teacher vacancies in Tayside have been readvertised as schools struggle to find recruits.

Across the country, 2,275 adverts for teaching positions have been posted more than once since 2014, according to council data.

Dundee City Council made the highest number of readvertisements in Scotland in each of the last two years.

Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat MSP, said the figures show that teaching posts are “proving stubbornly hard to fill” and pointed the finger at a “decade of mismanagement by the SNP”.

Dundee needed to advertise more than once for the same vacancy on 205 occasions in 2015/16 and 150 times in 2016/17, according to figures obtained by the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

That compares with 235 reposted adverts in Perth and Kinross and 33 in Angus across three years. Fife could not provide the figures.

Mr Scott said in some cases successful applicants not taking up offers will account for the need to restart the employee search.

But he added: “There is no doubt that teaching posts across Scotland are proving stubbornly hard to fill.

“The impact of a decade of mismanagement by the SNP is clear.

“Teaching is an amazing and rewarding profession. But there is an urgent need to make it more attractive to both existing and potential teachers.”

Gregor Murray, the education convener at Dundee City Council, said the data shows how hard they are working to recruit staff.

“This demonstrates that we are actively seeking to recruit for all posts, and endeavour to do all that we can to fill all positions in our schools,” the SNP councillor said.

At the start of the school year, Education Secretary John Swinney said there were 700 vacant teacher posts in Scotland.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Although teacher recruitment is a matter for local authorities, we recognise some areas have faced challenges filling vacancies.

“This is why we have invested £88 million in 2017, resulting in 543 more teachers than last year – the second year in a row that there’s been an increase in teacher numbers.

“We have taken decisive action to help recruit and retain teachers through our Teaching Makes People campaign, focusing specifically on attracting new teachers and career changers into STEM and other subjects.”

This demonstrates that we are actively seeking to recruit for all posts, and endeavour to do all that we can to fill all positions in our schools. GREGOR MURRAY