Teacher shortage

Last week’s exchanges in Holyrood left me shocked at the bureaucratic arrogance of the General Teaching Council of Scotland and the Scottish Government.

Nicola Sturgeon waffled on about recently-introduced changes allowing incoming teachers to work while they “work towards meeting the minimum standards” of the profession! For years then, skilled, experienced teachers from elsewhere, and mainly England, have been made to start at the bottom to join our so-called superior Scottish teaching profession?

Speaking as a former teacher who taught in Germany for two years, I recall that my qualifications were accepted there and my salary was calculated, including my UK experience. My teaching and classroom management were inspected by the head teacher. Happily, I passed inspection!

Moving forward to the present state of affairs in Scottish education, which has been exacerbated by the loss of 4,000 teaching posts, many classroom assistants gone and the churn of the ever-changing Curriculum for Excellence, I have great sympathy for the teachers doing their best to educate the next generation.

However, if the GTC and the much-reduced inspectorate were doing their job some of our Gtc-registered teachers would be advised to change their career. It is widely recognised that you can be sacked as a teacher for a variety of reasons in Scotland but being a bad teacher is not one of them!

Whenever Nicola Sturgeon goes into bellowing mode at First Minister’s Questions, you know she is on a sticky wicket. Declining standards in Scotland measured objectively against international benchmarks have told us the true trajectory of our educational system – downwards.

Now that they have removed Scotland from international league tables, they know they really have something to hide. A dose of honesty and realism is needed, but I am not holding my breath. ALISON FULLARTON Lumsdaine, Eyemouth