Current status: Answered by John Swinney on 16 February 2017
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports on the findings of a PISA worldwide education survey, which state that 45% of head teachers in Scotland fear pupils are being held back by a lack of resources, and a third say there are not enough support staff and materials.
The Scottish Government is taking a number of actions to help recruit and retain teachers. We are spending £88 million this year to make sure every school has access to the right number of teachers, we are opening up new and innovative routes into teaching, we have increased student teacher intake targets for the fifth year in a row, and we are setting targets to train teachers in the subjects where they are needed most.
We also launched a new teacher recruitment campaign on 8 February 'Teaching Makes People'. This builds on the success of last year’s 'Inspiring Teachers' campaign which helped drive a 19% increase in Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) applications to Scottish universities compared to the previous year.
We have also gone further than our manifesto commitment by providing £120 million of Pupil Equity Funding for 2017-18. This funding will be available for headteachers to use for the additional resources that they consider will help raise attainment and reduce the poverty related attainment gap. This funding is being allocated directly to headteachers as they and other school leaders are best placed to know the needs of the children and young people in their school.