1,500 college staff have no teaching qualification

More than 1,500 teaching staff working in Scotland’s colleges have no teaching qualifications – including 436 who have no formal qualifications.

A new report looking at staffing in colleges in 2016-17 showed that when full-time, part-time, temporary and permanent workers were all included, a total of 1,524 staff had no teaching qualification.

In this group were 321 fulltime permanent staff members, 340 part-time workers with permanent posts, 35 people who were full-time, temporary employees and 392 who were employed on a part-time, temporary basis.

Some 80 full-time permanent members of teaching staff and 84 part-time permanent employees had no formal qualifications, along with eight full-time and 264 parttime temporary staff.

Overall, colleges employed the equivalent of 10,891 fulltime staff members in 2016-17. Just under half (49.1 per cent) were teaching staff, but there was a slight drop in numbers, with the full-time equivalent (FTE) of 5,343 posts being 29 less than in 2014-15, while the number of non-teaching staff increased by 122 FTE.

The report by the Scottish Funding Council showed a small increase in the number of college lecturers who have undergone teacher training, to 88.9 per cent of full-time, permanent employees in 2016-17.