The Scottish government plans to fund universities to train an extra 200 secondary teachers in the coming academic year, new figures show.

But the target for the number of primary student teachers to be recruited is set to remain the same in 2022-23 in recognition of “historical over-recruitment in primary”.

Tes Scotland revealed in 2020 that the government’s statistical modelling - which is used to project how many teachers will be needed - had revealed there would be “a substantially lower requirement for new student teachers” due to falling primary rolls.

The statisticians said that there would be “basically no requirement for PGDE primary students from 2021 to 2027”, providing numbers on undergraduate courses were maintained.

The Scottish government has since committed to recruiting an additional 3,500 teachers during the course of the current Parliament.

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However, the documents published today by the Scottish Funding Council say this commitment was taken into consideration when setting the training targets.

The targets are set by the Scottish Funding Council, based on guidance from the Scottish government’s learning directorate.

The guidance says: “This year, the statistical modelling has also looked at the number of ITE [Initial Teacher Education] students required to meet the Programme for Government (PfG) commitment to support the recruitment of at least 3,500 additional teachers over the course of this Parliament.

“The TWPAG [Teacher Workforce Planning Advisory Group] recommends maintaining primary target intakes at the same level for next year and to increase secondary targets by 200. This approach recognises historical over-recruitment in primary and the ongoing need to increase teacher numbers in secondary.”

However, the guidance acknowledges getting more student teachers on to courses is more complicated than simply upping targets. It says a “considerable effort will be required on the part of the universities to reach an increased target of 2,000 in 2022-23 and support will be required in promoting teaching as a career to meet this challenging target”.

In total, the number of student teachers to be recruited has gone from 4,070 this academic year, to 4,270 in the coming year.

The target for primary teacher education courses for 2022-23 is to recruit a total of 779 students on to primary undergraduate courses and combined courses, and 1,155 on to primary postgraduate courses, including the PGDE.

For secondary, the target for the coming academic year is that 336 students will be recruited on to undergraduate and combined courses and 2,000 will be recruited on to postgraduate courses, including the PGDE.

The guidance from the learning directorate recommends the “increased secondary targets should be evenly applied across subjects”.

So whilst the goal was to recruit 224 students on to postgraduate maths courses this academic year, that target has been increased to 250 for the coming academic year. The target for the number of student teachers on postgraduate English courses has, meanwhile, gone from 221 in 2021-22, to 248 in 2022-23.

The Scottish government typically publishes information on how successful universities have been in recruiting to teacher education courses in January.

The actual intake figures for this academic year have yet to be published, however.

Tes Scotland asked the Scottish government last week when these figures would be made public and was told there was currently no date for publication.

The figures for 2020 show that primary teacher education courses - both undergraduate and postgraduate - surpassed their targets. However, whilst there were 2,136 places available on secondary teacher education courses, just 1,926 were filled.

This coming academic year there will be 2,336 places to fill on secondary teacher education courses.