Question reference: S5W-08367
- Asked by: Ross Thomson, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 23 March 2017
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Current status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 April 2017
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what additional resources it plans to invest in the Aberdeen area to tackle teacher shortages.
Answer
There is a shortage of teachers in a number of areas in Scotland and this is reflected in many other countries.
We have taken a series of actions to help address issues around teacher recruitment. These include increasing student intake targets for the sixth year in a row, taking steps to maintain teacher numbers as a central part of our priority to improve education, launched a new teacher recruitment campaign in February this year and developed, alongside Scottish universities, a package of innovative routes to teaching to help encourage more graduates to become teachers.
We are very happy to work with local authorities to help tackle teacher shortages in the Aberdeen area. Currently we are supporting the University of Aberdeen’s DLITE (Distance Learning for Initial Teacher Education) Programme which allows local authority staff to train as teachers while remaining in post and are funding an extension to this programme so that it coves secondary teaching and is available to all local authorities. We are also committed to considering whether a second cohort of PGDE (The Professional Graduate Diploma in Education) Internships can be supported.