Published, The Scotsman, 9th February, 2010

The announcement of a 40% cut in student teacher places is a crushing indictment of the failure of the people responsible for working out how many teachers are required. Somebody, somewhere is really shockingly poor at basic arithmetic. Correct me if I’m wrong, should the equation not be thus: Write down the number of teachers who are due to reach their retirement age, add the average number of teachers who leave the service annually, factor in known demographic changes, and work out the number of teachers you will therefore require in the coming academic year. You would think that we might have got the hang of this by now. Indeed, a great deal of time and effort does go into these calculations and yet they appear, almost always, to be reactive. Too many teachers qualified in the last two years so the powers that be now cut student teacher places by a staggering 40% (and higher in some parts of the country). The reality is that in 2014, as a direct result of this announced cut, The Scotsman will be reporting on the fact that there is a chronic shortage of qualified teachers.

A recently qualified teacher had previously covered a class in my school on a short-term basis and proved herself to be exceptionally good. On my recent request to her to return for further supply days, she apologised and informed me that she was unavailable because she had taken up a full-time, permanent post at a bank. How sad that having spent 4 years in training, followed by a Probationer placement for a year, that this young teacher has been forced into alternative employment because there was simply not enough work.

If you are going to allow young people to spend 5 years of their lives qualifying for a really worthy and important profession should you not be a little more rigorous in  working out the number of teachers your country actually requires. It is simply not good enough to be getting this so wrong, so often. My Head’s report would read: Must do better; numeracy a real weakness…

« »