Claims of red tape block to teacher recruitment
● Tories claim retraining is discouraging ‘outsiders’
Red tape is preventing teachers relocating to Scotland to plug the school staffing shortage, the Tories have claimed.
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson brought up the issue at Holyrood and referred to a maths teacher with 15 years’ experience in English schools who had been told he couldn’t work in Scotland without retraining.
However, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon insisted the rules had been changed.
Nicola Sturgeon’s education record came under fire yesterday after it was claimed bureaucratic barriers were preventing teachers from relocating to Scotland to plug the school staffing shortage.
At First Minister’s Questions, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson brought up the case of a maths teacher with 15 years experience in English schools who had been told he couldn’t work in Scotland without re-training.
Ms Davidson opened her attack on Ms Sturgeon by quoting The Scotsman’s revelation that children at Trinity Academy, Edinburgh, were having to be taught maths by specialists in other subjects.
The Tory leader said her party wanted those who had trained as teachers elsewhere to be “fast-tracked” into Scotland’s classrooms.
She said: “Yesterday we received an e-mail from a couple who moved to Scotland five years ago, the husband did his teacher training in maths and he worked down south for 15 years as a maths teacher.
“When he moved here he was told he couldn’t teach maths any more without a full years retraining as a student.
“That is a qualified maths teacher not allowed to teach maths in Scotland. And he is not alone.”
Ms Davidson said the “crippling” teacher shortage was not confined to Trinity Academy. She said Angus Council had asked the Scottish Government for 40 probationer teachers to cover the staff shortages in its area, but only got 23.
Ms Sturgeon responded by saying that Brexit posed a huge challenge for teacher recruitment.
She also said she had received an e-mail from the same maths teacher and claimed the system for making sure teachers from outside Scotland were suitably qualified had changed since he was looking for work in 2012.
Ms Sturgeon said: “Since then the General Teaching Council for Scotland has introduced provisional conditional registration, which allows teachers qualified outside Scotland to become registered and to take up a teaching post in Scotland while they work towards meeting the minimum requirement.
“Ruth Davidson asks me why haven’t we fixed that. Well I’m afraid Ms Davidson the answer is we have, you just didn’t bother to do the research to find out.
“That individual, while he would not have been able to teach in 2012, may now be in a position to do so, which is why we will now be contacting that individual to see if he wants to take up a teaching post.”
Ms Sturgeon added: “That is a change in circumstances that frankly I’m quite gobsmacked Ruth Davidson didn’t bother to find out.”