On the day that Scotland’s education secretary, John Swinney, made his statement on reopening schools to the Scottish Parliament, I was doing what hundreds of teachers were doing up and down the country - applying for the few jobs that were being advertised and preparing for interviews.

I had already had one interview that day and I had another one scheduled - incidentally, one of these jobs was pulled the day after we had all interviewed for the post.

In the background, I was listening to Mr Swinney. As a modern studies teacher, I must admit, I spend rather too much time listening to parliamentary statements.

Background: Newly qualified teachers ‘treated like pawns’

Related: Jobless teachers turn their anger on education secretary

Coronavirus: Former teachers could be asked to help reopen schools

Teaching in lockdown: ‘Teachers are heroes,’ says watchdog chief

For the most part, they are deathly dull - but it’s always good to have those off-the-cuff examples to share with classes in order to show them that what the Scottish government and parliament does affects many parts of their lives.

Coronavirus: Teachers struggling to find work

I had not dreamt that what would be announced that day would have such an immediate impact on my future prospects. Before the announcement, Mr Swinney had come in for some criticism for his idea to invite recently retired teachers back into the classroom to assist in education recovery after the Covid crisis, when there were still many teachers who had completed their induction year this year and had no idea where they were going to be employed come August (a position many teachers have been in).

This group of newly qualified teachers had, quite correctly, raised the issue that this may affect their job prospects for the coming year and launched a campaign to make sure that they were not forgotten. This aberration was corrected, and money was allocated to local authorities to ensure that these new entrants to the profession were supported.

However, unfortunately, this policy has had another (unintended?) consequence. It negatively impacts the number of jobs available for other teachers - teachers like me - who do not yet have a permanent contract. Many vacancies, both permanent and temporary, were immediately withdrawn by local authorities, and this has left many early career teachers who completed the Teacher Induction Scheme (TIS) prior to 2020 in the position where there are less opportunities for them, and every job that managed to avoid this cull now has far more applicants - even in authorities that traditionally attract less applicants.

We now have a situation where one group of teachers has been prioritised over another, and while those of us who qualified before 2020 are very happy for our colleagues, we are rightly frustrated that our situation seems to have been ignored by the politicians. This cannot be allowed to continue.

I have seen many calls recently for the TIS to be reformed. We need to look at the whole career system for teachers in the first few years of the job. We need to look at the recruitment numbers at sector and subject levels in minute detail. We need to look at the system for allocating probationers to authorities and how this affects post-probation prospects for all teachers - the fact is that where you end up for probation has an impact on your chances of having a permanent job afterwards because many local authorities prioritise their own probationers for vacancies. This disadvantages probationers who are allocated to smaller local authorities where, naturally, there are fewer vacancies.

To conclude, the NQT group should be commended for their success in making sure their voices are heard, but those who went before should not be forgotten.

The author is a modern studies and history teacher who has worked as a supply teacher since completing his probation in 2018-19. He does not wish to be named