The head of Scotland’s teaching watchdog is calling for a review of the one year teacher induction scheme, saying he believes part-time posts should be available for those with caring responsibilities.
The one year teacher induction scheme costs the Scottish government around £37 million a year to run and sees teaching graduates guaranteed a one year paid placement in a school where they can serve their probation.
However the scheme - which 2885 probationers embarked upon this year - is only available to those who can commit fulltime and Ken Muir, the chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), believes this should change.
He told Tes Scotland the scheme, which ran for the first time in August 2002, remained a “world class” preparation for teachers but should be reviewed so it remains fit for the future.
Mr Muir said: “The teacher induction scheme still offers a world class opportunity for students coming through. Being guaranteed a paid induction, that’s quite unique, and we get international visitors all the time who see it as really aspirational. But when something has been in place for over a decade its worth looking at again.
“We should look at increasing the degree of flexibility by offering part-time programmes. There are probationers who go on to the flexible route because there is no flexibility for them in the teacher induction scheme, which is a one year fulltime programme.
“Does it adequately take account of folk with caring duties or who can only commit half time because of child care arrangements? Probably not.”
He concluded: “The teacher induction scheme has served Scottish education well and with a review could continue to do so.”
Maureen McKenna - Glasgow’s director of education and president of education directors association, ADES - described the scheme as “one of the success stories of Scottish education” but agreed it was “always good to review something that has been in place for a long time”.
She added: “I think it would be helpful to review a number of elements of teacher education, for example, how have the partnership arrangements worked between the teacher education institutions and local authorities, could we improve the student experience further, do we have sufficient continuity between the student experience and the probationer experience?”
Larry Flanagan, however, warned a review could be “a bit of a Trojan Horse” at a time when fast-track routes into the profession were being introduced and the future of the GTCS itself was under threat.
He said: “I would be cautious about a review at the moment; given all the discussion around flexible routes and Teach First, and not forgetting the future of the GTCS, it may be viewed as a bit of a Trojan Horse. We would prefer to see a comprehensive review of the initial training year as practice seems to be varied across the country.”
