Gaelic school bill hits £50k per teacher

Published on 28/12/2012 12:00

MINISTERS are to spend up to £50,000 per teacher in a controversial bid to staff Gaelic classrooms.

Experienced teachers will be recruited from English-
speaking schools and paid their full annual salary of up to £35,000 while they learn to speak Gaelic for a year.

Combined with the £12,500 per person cost of training, the total bill could be as high as £47,500 for each extra Gaelic-speaking teacher.

Ten teachers will be taken out of existing schools and retrained in the first stage of the programme organised by the Bòrd na Gàidhlig, Scotland’s Gaelic advisory body.

Edinburgh City Council is due to open the doors of its first Gaelic primary school in the former Bonnington Primary building in August next year.

The premises are currently being refurbished at a cost of £3.53 million. It is to be named Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pairce, or Parkside Primary School.