Probationary teacher requests rising in cities and Central Belt, but not in most rural council areas

The trend has emerged despite long-standing recruitment challenges in rural Scotland

Demand for probation-year teachers is increasing in urban parts of Scotland, but not in many of the more rural areas, new figures show.

Rural councils have long struggled to recruit enough teachers to fill posts in local schools, particularly in northern Scotland. But statistics highlighted by The Scotsman today show these authorities were among the only councils to cut the number of requests they have been making for probationary teachers for secondary schools in recent years.

When data for the coming year is compared to 2017/18, the number of requests have halved in Argyll and Bute, and Orkney. There were declines of around 20 per cent in Angus and Highland, a drop of 15 per cent in Perth and Kinross, a fall of 14 per cent in Aberdeenshire, as well as declines of 11 per cent in Dumfries and Galloway, and 7 per cent in Scottish Borders.

Pupils stock image

Moray Council was an exception among the more rural authorities, with requests rocketing by more than 200 per cent, from 16 to 50 in the period. Rises were also recorded in the Western Isles and Shetland, but the numbers involved were very small.

Across the country, however, a total of 21 of the nation’s 32 councils were asking for more probation-year teachers in secondary compared to 2017/18, with the overall number increasing by almost 44 per cent in the period.

Aside from Moray, some of the biggest rises were in Aberdeen City, where the number trebled from 55 to 169, North Lanarkshire, where it has increased from 98 to 233, and Dundee City, where it more than doubled from 40 to 82. There were similar increases of more than 100 per cent in Midlothian and South Ayrshire.

The number of requests were up in almost every authority across the Central Belt, according to the General Teaching Council for Scotland figures.

In Edinburgh, they soared from 87 requests to 144, in Glasgow the number was up from 123 to 173. The figure rose in East Renfrewshire from 50 to 96, in East Dunbartonshire it went from 48 to 81, and in West Lothian the increase was from 59 to 78.