As cuts bite, £100k spent this year on teachers' foreign trips

But so far this year the Scottish Government has spent nearly 100,000 sending school staff on trips to locations such as California, China and Canada.

While education cuts have seen thousands of protestors march in the streets, city council staff have been making taxpayer-funded visits to Santa Cruz and Tianjin in China.

Other destinations for local authority workers since January include Ontario in Canada, Copenhagen in Denmark and Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Reasons for the trips – which have so far cost 92,500 – vary from "mentoring teachers" in the US to investigating "leadership in schools" in Canada.

And further foreign visits are planned. Edinburgh City Council's education leader Marilyne Maclaren and the authority's education director Gillian Tee earlier this month sought 1,100 of council funds to add to 2,200 of government money offered for a trip to Sweden. After news of the trip emerged, Edinburgh officials temporarily withdrew that request for funding from the council, which is in the midst of a cost-saving programme of closing and merging schools.

Critics questioned why thousands were being spent by government body Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) to send teachers abroad.

Des McNulty, Labour education spokesman, said: "Music tuition is being slashed, teachers and parents are being press-ganged into fundraising for essential supplies like jotters and pens, and Learning and Teaching Scotland is berated for not delivering the materials needed by teachers facing the implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence. The Scottish Government and LTS must rethink their priorities."

He was not opposed to study visits but considered the number of trips, the size of the delegations and the overall costs hard to justify. "Since 2007, teacher numbers have fallen by 2,500 and other school staff by over 1,000," he said. "Parents expect money to be spent on frontline services, where children are the direct beneficiaries, not on trips to Santa Cruz."

A recent survey by Scotland's biggest teaching union, the EIS, found swingeing cuts in spending by councils across Scotland. Instrumental music tuition, language assistants and teaching staff are all being cut or facing redundancy.

The most expensive trip was the five-day visit to Santa Cruz for 15 teachers and three other council staff at 1,550 per person – a total cost of 27,900.

Travellers represented councils across Scotland: Argyll and Bute, East Lothian, East Renfrewshire, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Fife, Glasgow, Highland, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Perth and Kinross, Renfrewshire, Shetland, South Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.

Edinburgh and Glasgow sent a delegate on four of the trips and other councils taking part included East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire and Orkney.

LTS said it did not fund the visits directly but via the Scottish Continuing International Professional Development (SCIPD) programme, which accepts applications from education professionals.

The education body responsible for creating and organising the new school system, Curriculum for Excellence – due in all schools this August – said the trips focused on current priorities for Scottish education. It said those taking part could learn from "excellent" and "innovative practice".

The trips form part of the on-the-job training known as Continued Professional Development, the body said, which teachers are entitled to under the Teachers' Agreement of working conditions. Each person on the trip has to write a report for the LTS website to "spread the learning" among those unable to attend.

Professor Kay Livingston, director of international research and innovation at LTS, said: "SCIPD presents practitioners with an important opportunity to learn from other education systems across the world and share best practice. Crucially, it also provides the chance to reflect on the Scottish education system and develop thinking and activities that directly impact on schools and pupils in Scotland.

"Every visit is embedded in each teacher's professional development and addresses key aspects of Curriculum for Excellence. There is preparation before going, reflection on returning and a proactive approach to ensuring change is embedded in practice."

A survey of parent councils carried out earlier this year by the Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) found many were being asked to contribute to core supplies such as library books and computers.

SPTC information officer Eleanor Coner said: "Parents would raise their eyebrows at this and ask for more details on how these trips are valuable. What good comes out of them and the purpose of them, especially when budgets are being trimmed all over the place?

"I know of teachers who have been on overseas trips and it motivates them and gives them lots of ideas, but one has to question whether at the moment it is a good use of money."

A Scottish Government spokesman said the SCIPD budget had been cut from 350,000 for 2009/10 to 100,000 for 2010/11. He said: "Through this programme, LTS supports a select number of education professionals to make visits to other countries, to explore good practice and consider how new approaches can benefit young people in Scotland. We remain convinced this is good value for money."