| The EIS said cutbacks in the number of student teachers were “short-sighted” as many of the existing workforce were due to retire in the next few years.
However, the Scottish Government insisted the move was necessary to reduce unemployment among newly-qualified teachers. A recent survey found only a fifth of the latest batch have found permanent full-time jobs.
General secretary Ronnie Smith said, “The radical cuts in the number of new teachers being trained is bad news for Scottish education, both at school and university level.
“These cuts are hitting the budgets of teacher education departments in universities and forcing them to reduce their numbers of lecturing staff.
“This will lead to a loss of expertise in the teacher education institutions, and raises questions over capacity when the number of trainee teachers rises inevitably over the next few years, since around one-third of experienced classroom teachers are scheduled to retire within a few years.
“Cutting back on the number of trainee teachers and the number of university education lecturers is remarkably short-sighted, and runs the risk of creating a massive problem in a few years time.
“The Scottish Government has adopted the easy answer to the problem of lack of job opportunities for new teachers by slashing the future student intakes. But their focus should be on stimulating demand for new teachers, not cutting the supply.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said, “We took the difficult decision to reduce student teacher intakes to deal with teacher unemployment. There is no point educating teachers for the dole queue.
“Reducing student numbers will create more jobs for those teachers already qualified.” |
