Swinney admits teacher training cuts went too far

Numbers ‘over-corrected’ in 2011

CUTS to the number of teachers trained in Scotland six years ago “probably went too far”, Education Secretary John Swinney has admitted.

Mr Swinney said with hindsight the target intake for student teachers should not have been reduced as much as it was in 2011.

It comes amid significant shortages of supply staff, and schools in rural areas are struggling to recruit classroom teachers. Secondary teachers are also in short supply in key subject areas including science and computing.

Ten years ago Scotland had too many teachers and many newly-qualified staff could not get jobs, leading to the numbers coming through teacher training being cut from 3,857 in 2009-10 to just 2,307 in 2010-11.

Mr Swinney told MSPs yesterday at the time of the decision there was a high level of teacher unemployment. Speaking to Holyrood’s Education Committee, which took evidence from Mr Swinney on the current difficulties facing schools, he said: “The model was recalibrated to take into account the fact teachers couldn’t get employment at that time and our desire was to make sure that teachers could get employment.

“Obviously there has been quite a variation in the intake levels, but they have been affected by the surplus of teachers being able to secure employment.”

Asked by Labour MSP Daniel Johnson if there had been an over-correction, he conceded: “I think clearly with the benefit of hindsight the intake numbers in 2011 were probably over-corrected too far, but judgments were made at that time based on the level of teacher unemployment.”

Mr Swinney said he believed a number of factors, including workload, had led to the current shortages. He said: “I would suspect we had a greater number of teachers leaving the profession because of some of the issues around workload which I have now acted to address.”

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government said thousands more people are considering a career in teaching as a result of its latest recruitment campaign.

The Teaching Makes People campaign was launched by Mr Swinney in February, targeting undergraduates studying science, technology, engineering and maths (the Stem subjects) as well as people working in associated industries.

Teacher training universities have said the campaign had attracted interest but no additional entries to Stem teaching degrees.

However, the Government said there had been more than 42,000 unique visitors to the campaign website and more than 2,600 had registered for updates about applying for a postgraduate teacher education course.

More than a third of undergraduates who were surveyed said after looking at the campaign that teaching seemed their ideal career.