More than one in 10 places on secondary teacher education courses in Scotland went unfilled this year - with subjects such as maths, physics and chemistry recruiting far fewer student teachers than it is projected schools are going to need.
New official figures show that recruitment onto university teacher education programmes is above target when it comes to primary student teachers in 2021-22, although the picture when it comes to secondary courses is quite different.
Overall, 15 per cent of places on university secondary teacher education programmes went unfilled this year, with the situation more or less acute depending on the subject concerned.
The postgraduate courses - the main one being the Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) - are the most popular routes into secondary teaching. This year the goal was to recruit 1,800 secondary teachers via these routes, and 336 onto undergraduate courses.
However, just 1,527 teachers were recruited to postgraduate secondary courses this year and 286 were recruited on to undergraduate courses.
Other key figures include:
- The target for recruitment on to physics postgraduate teaching courses was 117 but just 59 students were recruited, meaning that half of the places were unfilled.
- The target for technological education was 85 but just 53 students were recruited, meaning that more than a third of places were unfilled.
- And the target for chemistry was 144 but just 91 students were recruited, meaning that, again, over a third of places were unfilled.
Recruitment onto modern languages postgraduate courses were also significantly below target - around 30 per cent of places were unfilled - as was recruitment on to maths postgraduate courses, with around a quarter of places unfilled.
Of the 20 secondary subjects listed, just six hit or exceeded the student teacher recruitment target set by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC). They were art, drama, history, modern studies, PE and psychology.
The figures are particularly significant this year, given that the Scottish government has promised to recruit an extra 3,500 teachers during the course of this parliament, and also that it will cut class contact time by 90 minutes a week.
The government has said it aims to deliver the 90-minute reduction by August but this policy will require more staff in the system.
The SFC sets the recruitment targets for teacher education institutions but the targets are based on recommendations from the government.
Tes Scotland recently revealed that applications to Scottish teacher education institutions were falling at the same time as university recruitment targets were rising. In 2022-23, the government wants universities to train 200 more secondary teachers.
The government acknowledges that, to hit that increased target, a “considerable effort” will be required from the universities, and that they will require support “in promoting teaching as a career to meet this challenging target” - but it says the target takes account of its pledge on teacher numbers.
The upshot is that recruitment targets for subjects such as maths will be higher next year, even though lower targets were not met this year.
In the case of maths, this means that even though universities were unable to recruit 224 students this year - and managed to recruit 172 - they are being required to recruit 250 next year.
Recruitment on to primary courses for the coming academic year is to remain the same.
This year, when it came to primary, the total target for initial teacher education courses - both undergraduate and postgraduate - was 1,934. A total of 2,065 student teachers were recruited, meaning the universities exceeded the SFC target for primary student teacher recruitment by around 7 per cent.
