Initial teacher education (ITE) targets for new primary teachers could be cut by up to 20 per cent in Scotland to deal with an oversupply.
Officials are considering a number of options to deal with the issue, with many new teachers struggling to find permanent roles in schools.
Minutes from the Teacher Workforce Planning Advisory Group, first reported by The Scotsman, show that universities are keen to see a reduction in the overall primary intake targets.
The group, which brings together officials from the Scottish government, councils and higher education, acknowledged “the current challenges we see in terms of the availability of jobs for primary teachers”.
Options will be discussed at the next meeting, with officials saying: “The reduction could potentially happen over a two-year period (2025-26 and 2026-27) to allow universities time to adjust.
“The level of reduction probably needs to be around 10 to 20 per cent on current targets over these two years.”
The group noted that universities “generally agree with a reduction to the overall primary intake targets”.
Targets for 2024-25 remained the same when they were made public in April, despite complaints from teachers already in the system that they are struggling to find work.
The minutes of the Teacher Workforce Planning Advisory Group state: “Universities already facing a challenging financial position due to the decreasing number of international students. Any reduction should aim to keep targets static for universities serving rural local authorities and ensure viable programmes are allocated suitable targets.”
The group also noted that an increase in teacher numbers is needed to reduce class-contact times, which was an SNP manifesto promise in 2021.
Teachers’ struggles to find work
Responding to the potential decrease, Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesman Willie Rennie said it was a sign of the government’s failure to deliver the extra 3,500 teachers it promised at the last 2021 Scottish Parliament election.
He said: “The level of unemployment, short-term contracts and underemployment among teachers, especially primary teachers, has been far too high. New teachers have been left on the scrapheap.”
For the past two years, the total number of teachers working in Scotland has fallen; there were just over 700 fewer primary teachers working in Scotland in 2023 as compared to 2021.
The pupil-teacher ratio, however, remains relatively low. In 2021 there were 15.1 pupils per primary teacher, the lowest number since 2006; in 2022 and 2023 that figure rose to 15.3 pupils.
However, primary teachers in particular report struggling to find work.
Last year, just 16.6 per cent of new teachers had secured a permanent post in the September following their probation; the equivalent figure for secondary post-probationers was 47.2 per cent.
Scottish Teachers for Permanence, a campaign group with more than 3,500 members on Facebook, has been calling for immediate action to address the jobs crisis, including cutting the number of places on ITE courses to address the “huge backlog” of teachers “who can’t get permanent jobs”.
A Scottish government spokesman said the Teacher Workforce Planning Advisory Group considers a “range of options” and no decision has been taken on the August 2025 intake.
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