Readers' letters: Secondaries need specialists as teachers, not generalists

I was much intrigued to note reports of the Scottish government’s proposal that primary registered teachers could be “retrained” for secondary work as one of the measures adopted to combat the recruitment and retention difficulties in the secondary schools ().

The primary and secondary sectors of education are quite different in a wide range of ways. The conversion proposal is, however, not a new idea. From time to time over the years registered teachers have made personal decisions to change their sector and the universities are well aware of the arrangements which have to be put in place to make such changes effective. Nowadays there are no salary implications.

It must be stressed that there is nothing wrong with the conversion process in principle, provided that it is properly managed in practice. The risk is that, if the process is not carefully monitored, it could result in unnecessary and unwanted “professional dilution”. This would be the case if under-qualified teachers were permitted as a matter of course to teach in secondary schools.

Secondary school teachers need specialist knowledge of their subjects (Picture: Anthony Devlin/Getty Images)

Broadly speaking most primary teachers are generalists. In other words they are prepared and expected to be able to teach all subjects at all levels in the primary school from P1 to P7. Primary and secondary teachers are educated, trained and qualified in wholly different ways and to different levels. Secondary teachers are expected to teach their subject or subjects at all levels from S1 to S6. They are subject specialists as opposed to the generalists in the primary sector.

I would therefore suggest that every primary-registered teacher seeking to undertake the conversion process should have or arrange to secure no less than four years of university education in the subject or subjects which they intend to teach.

If the four-year requirement is made clear and put in place, there should be no problem with the conversion process and no question of a lowering of professional standards.

Dr Ivor Sutherland, Peebles, Scottish Borders

People and power

It was what Scotland’s Energy Minister, Stephen Gethins, did not say last week in his comment on the UK’s forthcoming Strategic Spatial Plan that was telling (your report, 31 August).

He made repeated reference to investor confidence, grid connections, transmission charging and strategic deployment to 2050 but not one word about communities. Not once. No mention of the people expected to live with the consequences of these decisions nor of the landscapes being transformed and the pressures on an already depleted natural environment.

That omission is alarming. In Scotland’s energy debate, people are being treated as collateral damage: expected to accept pylons, substations, unprecedented high voltage OHLs, industrialised landfalls and landscape loss while ministers speak the language of markets and megawatts.

This is not a just transition. It is a top-down industrial programme being imposed on rural and coastal Scotland without any honest national conversation about who pays the price and who benefits.

Worse, all this is being pushed forward while Scotland has had no up-to-date final energy strategy for nine years and none is expected until at least autumn 2027. Huge decisions are being made without a coherent public framework.

That is not strategic planning. It is reckless drift.

The urgency is compounded by National Energy System Operator’s own recent admission that it “does not have a way of assessing which generation is required for GB demand and which is intended for export”.

How can “national need” be used to justify the industrialisation of communities and landscapes when those advancing the case cannot clearly say who the electricity is for? Homes? Export? Hyperscale data centres?

Communities should not be an afterthought or footnote in Scotland’s energy future. They are central to it and must not be sacrificed in an energy plan shaped behind closed doors and around demands no one is prepared to acknowledge openly.

Eileen West, Banchory, Aberdeenshire

Global outlook

The Scottish government’s proposal to expand Scotland’s overseas office network should be welcomed. This is not about creating “embassies”. It is about creating opportunities – attracting investment, opening export markets, supporting Scottish businesses and promoting our universities and tourism.

Scotland currently has 39 offices overseas, counting all Scottish government and Scottish Development International (SDI) sites.

Other regions, from Quebec to Catalonia, understand the value of having people on the ground building international relationships. Flanders, with a population smaller than Scotland’s, has around 100 economic offices around the world, alongside 13 official diplomatic representations

Scotland cannot afford to look inward while other economies compete aggressively for investment, talent and trade.

The test is simple: if these offices bring more investment, jobs and opportunities to Scotland than they cost, they are not a luxury. They are an investment in Scotland’s future.

Scotland needs to be out there competing – not sitting on the sidelines.

Alex Orr, Edinburgh

Cap's not fair

The announcement of an extension of Swinney’s latest subsidy – the £2 bus fare cap – fills me with dismay.

Firstly it is unfair that this subsidy is rolled out to some parts of Scotland (Glasgow and the west where the SNP has highest support?) and not the east. This is discrimination. Why should some areas of the country benefit and not others?

Secondly, and more importantly it appears, as is usual with most of this government’s policies, to be unfunded, and is added to the long list of wish list subsidies that we, the taxpayers have to fund.

David Jerdan, Crail, Fife

Pier group

I happened to be in St Andrews on Sunday and it was a joy to see thousands of red-gowned students taking part in the Pier Walk. Two things struck me about the report in the following day’s Scotsman, though.

The students are no longer allowed to climb up the ladder and walk along the narrowest section (thank goodness – we did it 50 years ago often at dead of night and not particularly sober. It was not in any way safe!).

We were always told then that the tradition went much further back, to mediaeval times, when the preacher at the university arrived and departed by boat on Sunday, and the pier walk marked the students accompanying the cleric back to his ship in the harbour and wishing him Godspeed.

Brian Bannatyne-Scott, Edinburgh

Pay our carers

Your editorial on the subject of social care (8 September) is correct. Rather than pump money into NHS hospitals, it should be used to enhance external care services.

I was appalled to learn that excellent carers working for a private company, and presently helping me at home, are ranked as unskilled, and paid accordingly.

It would be better to pay their employers more, in order for them to attract and train more people to a higher level, with increased wages, thus speeding patient discharge from hospitals. As these matters are devolved, and the problem is obvious and urgent, it could be solved without delay by our parliament.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Kinross-shire

NHS delays

We have to wonder how the NHS in Scotland can receive the support it appears to have from the public and our government, given that delays between referral from GP to treatment can extend from months to over a year.

Whether from acute pain while waiting for hip replacement or eye procedure to enable acceptable eyesight, delay for treatment can mean misery for those afflicted.

I recently required treatment for an eye problem and was in the black hole between my optician and treatment centre and finally, by direct contact, discovered that I was in for a wait of at least six months before a chance of treatment. This delay, I understand, was down to the centre only managing to treat ten eye problems a month, which equates to at least 60 people who are waiting for treatment and one assumes that this number waiting will seldom change, given the number treated per month.

I have to own up that waiting that long was unacceptable to me and consequently decided to go privately, with treatment carried out within two weeks of contacting the private clinic.

My point is, if the private sector can be used to quickly reduce these waiting times why is the NHS not taking advantage of private facilities to help those in desperate need of pain relief or treatment to get their life back.

I realise that our government is dead set against privatisation of our NHS but given that GPs are no longer are involved in eye or hearing tests or follow-up treatment and the millions spent on agency nurses by our hospitals, this dichotomy of thought or actual practice condemns many to months of pain and/or misery because our government cannot bring themselves to accept help from entities that might make a profit.

We really have to wonder just how those in power can square the circle of pain and discomfort for a high number of people with an adherence to a point of view that is condemning those people to months of misery that could be alleviatedquite quickly.

A Lewis, West Linton, Scottish Borders

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