Attempts to recruit retired teachers resulted in an “exceptionally low” number volunteering to return to the classroom, Scotland’s education secretary has admitted.
The revelation from Shirley-Anne Somerville - at today’s meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee - comes after the education secretary for England, Nadhim Zahawi, called last month for ex-teachers to sign up to help with Covid-19 staff shortages in the new year.
Ms Somerville said that a “very small” number of retired teachers responded to appeals to return to support pupils and schools during the pandemic, which she said was in line with the experience of other countries.
But the education secretary said that the Scottish government’s strategy to try and rehire former teachers would continue, despite the apparent failure to attract significant numbers back to the sector so far.
Challenged about teacher recruitment during the pandemic, Ms Somerville said: “Earlier on in the pandemic, we did, of course, put a call out via the General Teaching Council for Scotland for retired teachers if they wanted to come back into the profession for some time.
“The uptake of that, I have to say, was exceptionally low - a very small, small number came forward from that.”
She added: “But it is something that we are looking to do again to see whether any difference could be made.
“I would say, at the outset, we would again expect the numbers from that to be low - as with other countries - but we certainly think it’s something which should be approached.”
Ms Somerville referenced a £145.5 million Budget allocation for staff recruitment so local authorities could theoretically employ up to 2,500 extra teachers or 500 support staff, although she was unable to say how many have so far been recruited.
“We can’t put an exact figure on it because we are not dictating to local authorities, how that money should be spent,” she said.
Teacher numbers have risen by over 2,000 since the pandemic began, going from 52,247 in 2019 to 54,285 in 2021 (in 2020 the figure was 53,400).
But this is not translating into smaller class sizes: the average class size in primary was 23.2 in 2021, up from 23.1 in 2020, but down on 23.5 in 2019.
