Oban High is struggling to recruit quality teachers

THERE are ongoing problems with recruiting people to the public sector in Oban and Argyll, a meeting heard last week.

The situation is especially serious in hiring well- qualified teachers for Oban High School, according to its head teacher.

Peter Bain highlighted the issue last week at a meeting of the Oban, Lorn and the Isles community planning group.

But there are also problems in attracting staff to the police and the fire services, and GPs.

Mr Bain told the meeting in the school that recently advertised vacancies saw just one applicant for a business studies position and three for a maths teacher. He compared that to a school in East Lothian, where a single advertised post attracted around 60 submissions.

However, Mr Bain suggested that the situation could be helped with a campaign to improve the image of the area further afield.

He said: ‘ We strive for excellent teachers so what we really need is for a group to work together to promote the benefits of Argyll and Oban as a wonderful place to live and work.

‘It is not good enough that we only had three applications for the maths teacher post. It is important to try to attract good staff so we need good relocation packages. We are very grateful to our local councillors for working with the school to secure an adequate number of teachers. If we did not have that, we would not be able to provide the breadth of education that we do.’

Councillor Roddy McCuish, Argyll and Bute Council, echoed Mr Bain’s views. He said: ‘ We can all talk up the area. It can be hard to get people here but if we keep talking down the area, it makes it more difficult.’

Another person attending the committee suggested recruiting from south of the border but Mr Bain explained that all teachers coming to work in this country required to be registered with the Gener- al Teaching Council for Scotland.

Committee chairwoman Margaret Adams pointed out that the same problem applied to the health service, with difficulties in attracting GPs to Argyll.

And, for the police, Sergeant Alan Long said there was a recruitment drive at present for both full-time officers and special constables.

Sergeant Long said: ‘We have people on secondment from other areas and, in the past, we have had some of them who wanted to stay because it’s a great place to live and work. We’ve got a saying here that in Oban even the neds wave to us.’

Sergeant Long is himself finishing a seven-month secondment that ends this week.