Shortage of teachers good for children, says SNP MSP
A NATIONALIST MSP has said children benefit from the shortage of teachers in Scottish schools – because of the ‘variety’ of temporary staff.
John Mason, who represents Glasgow Shettleston, was tackled on social media by an angry mother who said her child had had no permanent teacher for an entire year.
Instead, the pupil was taught by seven people in that time – and the ‘children were telling the staff what they had covered’.
She told the MSP on Twitter: ‘It is not education, it is a babysitting service. Spin it any way you want but I have never seen so many angry parents. Lack of teachers is having a huge negative impact.’
But Mr Mason told her: ‘While one permanent teacher is generally a good thing, there has been criticism that primary children need more of a variety of teachers.’
Condemning Mr Mason’s comments, a Scottish Tory spokesman said: ‘No child would benefit from having several teachers in the space of a year – he needs to get out of dreamworld and off social media.’
Mr Mason said he believed ‘some children will have benefited from a mix of teachers while some children will not have enjoyed it so much’. In the exchange with the mother, he also claimed: ‘Educaknown tion is not a shambles. It is very hard to forecast exact numbers of teachers.
‘If too many are trained, there are complaints they do not have jobs. If too few, complaints about that.’ The frustrated mother, on Twitter as Lovely Lady, told Mr Mason: ‘For decades we have managed with reasonable accuracy to predict the numbers of teachers our education system requires.’
But she claimed that Education Secretary John Swinney had ‘decided to cut the numbers’.
Seamus Searson, general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, said: ‘Children at primary level need stability and particularly in deprived areas the only stability many pupils might get is in class.
‘There has to be an acknowledgement that there are serious teacher shortages.’
An SNP spokesman said: ‘The number of teachers has risen to its highest level for seven years – growing by 543 to 51,513 in 2017 with the help of the Attainment Scotland Fund.
‘The money provided to headteachers to help close the attainment gap is helping fund hundreds of additional teachers.’
An EIS teaching union spokesman said: ‘Stability is important for a child’s education. The building of trust between children and teachers will grow and bring benefits for pupils’ learning.’
A Scottish Government spokesman acknowledged that ‘to have seven teachers in one year risks undermining the quality of education for pupils’.
Last night, Mr Mason said: ‘This person seemed to be making a criticism of the Scottish Government, but really this should be brought up with the council.’
‘Children need stability’