Lack of teachers 'to hit plans to cut class sizes'

Published on Sunday 2 September 2007 00:06

MINISTERS were under fire last night over their high-profile plans to cut primary class sizes, as new figures showed there will be only a small increase in the number of teachers available from next year.

Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop told Parliament earlier this summer that an extra 250 teacher-training places would be made available. She has pledged to reduce P1, P2 and P3 classes to no more than 18.

The extra places have been secured in teacher-training colleges, as promised, but it has emerged this has only balanced out a cut in the number of total places.

Education chiefs decided in January that the number of teaching-training posts should be reduced by 205. Consequently, the extra 250 posts announced by the SNP means the actual number of places is only up by 45, from 1,476 to 1,521.

A spokeswoman for Hyslop said that the small increase would still ensure class sizes were soon reduced. But Labour education spokesman Hugh Henry, the former education minister, claimed: "These kinds of numbers will in no way deliver what they want to do. I know people who voted for them because of this pledge and it is a disgrace that they won't be able to deliver on that."

However, Hyslop's spokeswoman replied: "We have got falling school rolls. We have looked ahead, as always happens every year, and then given guidance on the numbers of places that will be required. We don't want to churn teachers out for the dole."

The extra places refer only to postgraduate training posts, where students train for one year following a degree.

In the SNP government document last week setting out their first 100 days in power, it insisted: "We will ensure that teacher numbers in the teaching training colleges in the autumn of 2007 are at a level to start driving down class sizes in P1-P3. Ministers will identify which schools can move to class sizes of 18 from 2008, with our full commitment rolled out thereafter".