Thousands of recently qualified teachers - particularly in primary - are struggling to find work and are considering giving up on their “dream job”, says the head of Scotland’s largest teaching union.
According to Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS teaching union, there are “thousands of teachers currently on supply lists and temporary contracts, most desperate for a permanent or at least a secure post”.
Some of the new teachers, he said, had changed careers on the back of Scottish government adverts promoting teaching as a profession but were now “unable to secure mortgages because of a lack permanency in employment”.
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In an open letter to the education secretary, John Swinney, Mr Flanagan said their situation had now been exacerbated by the “discriminatory scenario” created by the Scottish government - Mr Swinney recently promised at least a one-year contract for newly qualified teachers next year.
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This was welcomed by NQTs who had said that “a whole batch” of them were “unemployed and facing uncertainty”, but supply teachers responded by saying Mr Swinney had turned his back on them.
They described the policy as “incredibly divisive, cruel and discriminating to the rest of the teaching sector and, in particular, supply teachers”.
Mr Flanagan highlighted that, in the wake of Mr Swinney’s announcement, one local authority - Aberdeenshire Council - had withdrawn an advert for posts in its primary schools. The authority told applicants that “with John Swinney’s announcement regarding the commitment to retain their current probationer, this has put us in a position where there are no identified vacancies to place external applicants”.
Mr Flanagan called for all teachers looking for posts to be included in the government’s scheme to boost teacher numbers and support the educational recovery of pupils following the coronavirus lockdown - not just newly qualified teachers.
This, Mr Flanagan argued, would allow schools to better “nurture and care” for pupils and also enable them to have smaller class sizes.
He said: “One solution is simply to extend the scope of the planned ‘additionality’ scheme to also cover teachers on supply lists and looking for posts.
“From an EIS perspective, the need for more staff will certainly be there. The detriment suffered by pupils as a result of lockdown will need more staff than ever before if we are to support, nurture and care for our children. Dealing with trauma in pupils is a labour-intensive process. It needs time for the counselling discussions to take place, for relationships to be reinstated and trust regained. That means we need more staff.
“Additional staff would allow for smaller class groupings. Leaving aside the general merits of smaller classes, in terms of pupil support and recovery there is an immediate pragmatic need to facilitating greater pupil-teacher interaction time.”
On young teacher said that while official figures had shown a rising number of newly qualified teachers finding work within the first year, this “now appears to be faltering, particularly in relation to primary... we now have thousands of teachers currently on supply lists or temporary contracts, most desperate for a permanent or at least a secure post next session”.
Mr Flanagan continued: “I met with a representative group of these colleagues last week and heard their personal testimonies of lives disrupted - those unable to secure mortgages because of a lack of permanency in employment; those who had career switched on the back of Scottish government adverts but now are unable to find work; young teachers thinking of giving up on their ‘dream job’ because, despite several years of study and having achieved full registration, they struggle to even be interviewed for posts.”
On Friday Mr Swinney took part in the latest episode of the Tes Scotland podcast. He said that he was planning to meet a group of recently qualified teachers this week; the Scottish government has now confirmed that meeting is due to go ahead virtually on Friday.
Speaking on the podcast about the issues raised by supply teachers, Mr Swinney said: “What I am interested in doing is boosting the size of the teaching workforce because I think that’s probably the most significant contribution we can make to try and help to strengthen the delivery of education and to support young people to make up for the ground that has been disrupted since 20 March... I want to maximise the size of the teaching workforce and I want to use the resources that are available to us to do that because next year is going to be critical in trying to help young people to make up for what I acknowledge has been a really significant period of disruption.”
