Education '˜crisis' as Scottish school forced to advertise six times for new teacher

A high school has advertised six times for an English teacher, prompting fresh claims the government is presiding over a 'crisis' in education.

Picture: TSPL/John Devlin

Aberdeenshire Council has advertised the post at Peterhead Academy on half a dozen occasions since July 2017 – but has so far received just two applications, data released following a Freedom of Information request revealed.

As of 10 November, the authority had 47 vacant teaching posts that had been advertised between two and six times.

Meanwhile Stirling Council had a vacancy for a home economics teacher at Bannockburn High School since January 2016 that had been advertised three times – with no responses received to the first two adverts and only one application from the third.

The Liberal Democrats, who asked Scotland’s councils about the number of teaching posts that were vacant which had to be re-advertised, said the situation was very worrying.

Education spokesman Tavish Scott spoke out after the party revealed 2,275 teaching jobs were re-advertised in the three years between 2014-15 and 2016-17.