“Many councils” are struggling with teacher “recruitment and retention challenges”, especially in certain subjects and parts of the country, according to Scottish local authorities’ body Cosla.
Last week, Cosla wrote to education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville highlighting “the challenges facing councils in recruiting teachers qualified in the required curriculum areas”.
The letter - seen by Tes Scotland - added: “Many councils are also reporting difficulties in attracting such candidates for particular subjects and certain geographic areas.”
The letter was written by Cosla in response to the news that the Scottish government is planning to “lock” the pupil-teacher ratio at 2022 levels and introduce financial sanctions for councils that fail to deliver.
The government is also planning to set a minimum number of hours in class for primary and secondary students.
Those moves have come in response to the budget proposals being considered by some local authorities, which include big cuts to teacher numbers and reducing the number of hours students spend in school.
Teacher numbers fell for the first time last year since 2016, albeit by just 92. However, the Scottish government has promised to increase the number of teachers and classroom assistants by 3,500 over the course of the 2021-26 Parliament. It says councils were given £145.5 million to do just that and have failed to deliver.
However, in the letter to Ms Somerville, Cosla highlights councils’ recruitment woes, saying councils are trying to recruit staff but many can’t.
While it is known that many teachers - particularly new recruits to primary teaching - are struggling to find work, it is also the case that many schools outside the Central Belt have long struggled to recruit staff. It is also harder to fill jobs in certain secondary subject areas, including maths, computing and technological education.
This year almost 40 per cent of places on the most popular route into secondary teaching, the one-year professional graduate diploma in education, were unfilled. In chemistry 70 per cent of places were unfilled; in technological education, 60 per cent; in modern languages, 57 per cent; in both physics and maths, 54 per cent; and in computing, 50 per cent.
In the letter, Cosla also hits out at the government’s data, saying its figures are out of date.
It adds that councils have increased expenditure on non-teaching staff “year-on-year” and by a total of over £150 million since 2019-20 - but there has been “insufficient recognition that the £145.5 million was also for a pupil support staff resource”.
According to Cosla, the teacher census - taken in September and published in December - is “a useful snapshot of progress” but “it does not present the full picture” and “many councils have, since the census, updated their figures”.
It adds: “We would be very keen to work with you to review the figures, which we believe will provide us with invaluable insight into the recruitment and retention challenges facing many of our councils (which further impact the overall picture).
“We also wanted to highlight to you the challenges facing councils in recruiting teachers qualified in the required curriculum areas. Many councils are also reporting difficulties in attracting such candidates for particular subjects and certain geographic areas.”
Last week at First Minister’s Questions, Nicola Sturgeon said that the government would “act to protect teacher numbers” and that the education secretary would “set out more details to Parliament in the coming days”.
Later that day, Tes Scotland revealed the government had told councils it planned to introduce “financial sanctions for local government” if the pupil-teacher ratios recorded in 2022 were not maintained. Ms Somerville also told councils the government intended to enshrine in law the number of learning hours that primary and secondary students must receive each week.
Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS, welcomed the government intervention but said that “the persistent under-funding and under-resourcing of Scottish education” created the problem in the first place.
Education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “The Scottish government will take steps to ensure that the funding that we are providing to councils to maintain increased numbers of teachers delivers that outcome. We have very clear commitments to improve Scottish education.
“Ministers are firm in their views that Scottish education would not be improved by having fewer teachers or less time in school.
“Further detail will be set out to the Scottish Parliament in the coming days.”
