The Scottish Liberal Democrats will tomorrow outline new measures to bring back principal teachers in a bid to boost the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem), Tes Scotland can reveal.
The plans will be part of new proposals to build Scotland’s reputation as “the home of science”, the party said ahead of the launch of its manifesto for the 6 May Scottish Parliament election.
Principal teachers have become rarer in Scottish secondary schools across all subjects in recent years, with a widespread preference for “faculty” structures headed up by a teacher who leads on several subjects but may not have an expertise in some of them.
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Scottish election 2021: The Liberal Democrats’ education manifesto
The Scottish Liberal Democrats’ manifesto will commit to:
- Giving young people better access to expert teachers in Stem subjects by bringing back principal teachers for each of them, which would “create a more attractive career path for graduates in Stem subjects within teaching”.
- Asking teachers to lead reforms of the way primary schools tackle maths, since “without maths, none of the Stem subjects is possible”.
- Increase the starting salaries of teachers to £30,000, helping to attract more graduates in science, technology, engineering and maths by offering them competitive salaries.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: “The impact of science on all our lives has never been clearer. It has needed the biggest scientific effort in history to navigate the pandemic and establish an escape through a vaccine.
“As we emerge from the pandemic, Scotland needs to look to the future and grab hold of the high-skill, high-wage jobs of the future. It will create jobs and tackle the climate emergency.
“I want Scotland to be the home of science. We have great strengths that we should be building upon.
“I want to encourage more people to take up science all through school and help more women establish successful careers in science. To do that we need to get more teachers in schools with the skills we need to teach and inspire our young people.”
Mr Rennie added: “Our proposals will make teaching an attractive career path for graduates in Stem subjects. We will give teachers an attractive starting salary, better routes to promotion and sort the concerns about workloads and conditions through our McCrone 2 review.
“Scottish Liberal Democrats have already negotiated and won an extra £80 million for education in the Scottish budget but we want to go much further. We will put recovery first for education and jobs.”
