Chamber and committees

No. Staff in pre-school teams are variously qualified; and the potential for using ICT in pre-school settings needs to be thoroughly and sensitively explored. Our priority for this sector is to assess the scope for using ICT as an aid to young children's learning and for its contribution to the professional development of all staff. My department is supporting work by the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum to address these issues.

Recruitment of teachers to posts in publicly funded schools is a matter for education authorities. The Scottish Executive actively promotes teaching as a career through a range of recruitment and publicity measures. At career events and on other occasions the Department takes every opportunity to encourage men to consider a career in pre-school education, primary and special schools. A recent video produced by the Department to promote teaching as a career includes interviews with a male primary school teacher and a male teacher working the special needs area in a primary school.

Promotion procedures for teaching staff are a matter for local authorities. In developing procedures they must take account of employment and equal opportunities legislation.

Figures on how many full-time equivalent teachers were employed in publicly funded (a) primary schools, (b) secondary schools, (c) special schools and (d) pre-school education in 1999 are not yet available. The most recent information is for 1998 and is available from SPICe.

The Scottish Executive undertakes a wide range of recruitment publicity activities to attract new graduates into the profession.

Work currently undertaken by the Department to promote teaching as a career includes production of publicity material, attendance at career events and media advertising. There was an encouraging response to the most recent press and radio advertising campaign which took place in the latter part of last year. As a direct result of the campaign the Department received over 2,800 enquiries about entering teacher training.

The Department is now sponsoring jointly with the GTC a recruitment campaign specifically targeted at attracting graduates who may be eligible for entry to PGCE mathematics courses.

The McCrone Committee of Inquiry into professional conditions of service for teachers is looking at the recruitment and retention of teachers in Scotland. Our current activities to attract people into teacher training will be reviewed in light of the committee's report.

The latest information available from the 1998 School Census provides the following pupil:teacher ratios in publicly funded schools:

At September 1998:

(a) 19.4 in Primary Schools,

(b) 13.0 in Secondary Schools,

(c) 4.4 in Special Schools,

At February 1999:

(d) 29.2 in Pre-School Education Centres.

The Scottish Executive has no targets for the provision of e-mail addresses to teachers in pre-school centres.

The target set out in Making it work together: a programme for government is that there should be an e-mail address for every school child by 2002.

This information will be available when the detailed results of the 1999 School Census are published in July 2000.

This information will be available when the detailed results of the 1999 School Census are published in July 2000.