This year, recruitment on to teacher education courses hit a new low, with subjects already suffering from a shortage of teachers - often science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) subjects - particularly badly hit.
Just 30 per cent of places were filled on one-year teacher education courses for chemistry. For maths, that figure was 46 per cent, and just half of the available places on computing courses were filled.
Now, Tes Scotland can reveal that the future of the Stem bursary scheme designed to make it possible for career changers to embark on a teaching qualification in shortage subjects is hanging in the balance, with the Scottish government refusing to confirm if it will run this coming academic year.
The bursary is worth £20,000 - and in 2022-23 there were 150 bursaries available.
Typically applications for the scheme open in March. However, when Tes Scotland asked the Scottish government if it was planning to continue the scheme for 2023-24, it said the matter remained “under consideration”.
Education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “We are working to ensure we maximise the number of people educated and skilled in Stem subjects as we know these are the skills which will be required to meet the challenges of today and the future economy.
“The Scottish government offered 150 bursaries of £20,000 for the current academic year for career changers to do teacher training in Stem subjects where the demand for teachers is at its greatest.
“Plans to continue the bursary scheme for the 2023-24 academic year remain under consideration.”
Skills Development Scotland runs the scheme on behalf of the Scottish government. When asked if it would be continuing in 2023-24, an SDS spokesperson said the body was still to receive guidance from the government on whether or not the scheme was going ahead.
The spokesperson said SDS had been given no indication of funding for next year or subject areas that might be included.
The spokesperson added: “If approved, we’ll start the process to invite applications and again that will close around September 2023.
‘The single most urgent structural issue’
The Stem bursary was announced in 2017 by the deputy first minister and then education secretary John Swinney. At the time, Mr Swinney said he was introducing the new payments because “we need to recruit more teachers in these subjects” and to do that, he said, “we need to reach beyond recent graduates and attract people who have the appropriate subject degree, but are working in business or industry”.
For the current academic year, 2022-23, the Stem bursary was available for career changers looking to become teachers of maths, computing science, technological education, physics, chemistry or home economics.
But while 150 bursaries were available, just 84 were awarded; the previous year (2021-22), 137 Stem bursaries were approved; and the year before that (2020-21), 150.
Responding to the news that the scheme may be under threat, Labour education spokesperson Michael Marra called for an “ambitious” new strategy to tackle the shortage of Stem teachers, describing the problem as “perhaps the single most urgent structural issue in our education system”.
Mr Marra said: “The number of young people obtaining qualifications in vital Stem subjects continues to decline just as the number of available teachers in these subjects drops. The impact is obvious to anyone concerned for the future of the country.
“This is perhaps the single most urgent structural issue in our education system - how do we find teachers for these subjects without whom our future economic prospects will be dire? The collapsing number of applicants to teacher training in these areas is incredibly worrying.
He added: “The Stem bursary scheme has been an isolated policy that has evidently failed to arrest the decline in teacher numbers. If it is to be dropped or replaced, that must be done on the basis of a robust analysis.
“The large drop in numbers of those choosing to access the bursary programme is just one of the many signs that a new strategy is urgently needed. That approach must be ambitious, comprehensive and long term.”
