MSP demands action to fulfil teachers jobs

Jan 7 2009 by Will Henshaw, Rutherglen Reformer

BURNSIDE-based MSP Robert Brown has hit out at the lack of jobs for qualified teachers.

The lack of jobs for newly qualified teachers was highlighted by Glasgow Liberal Democrat MSP Robert Brown to the Cabinet Secretary for Education in the Scottish Parliament recently.

Mr Brown pressed the Minister on the issue following a report by the General Teaching Council for Scotland which revealed that only 31 per cent of newly qualified staff have found a permanent post this year, and that an extraordinary 700 probationary teachers who qualified this summer have no job at all in teaching.

Robert Brown, who was Deputy Minister for Education and Young People in the last Scottish Government, said:

“I have met and heard of a lot of enthusiastic new teachers who can’t get a job after their probationary year.

“Some have been forced to give up their hope of a teaching career and go back to other jobs. Some are young teachers with a strong motivation for their job.

“Others have come to teaching later on in life, gone through University to acquire their qualification, often at considerable cost to themselves.

“The Cabinet Secretary’s line that it was all the fault of either the previous Government just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. When Liberal Democrats were in Government before May 2007, we funded the costs of the new teachers.”

Mr Brown asked the Cabinet Secretary what the Scottish Government’s targets were for the number of teachers this year.

He added: “Can the Minister tell the Chamber what account has been taken in its target figures for next year of the SNP Government’s lamentable failure this year to find employment for all those teachers already trained?

“Does the Minister agree that this is a horrendous waste of public resources and individual aspirations? Does she further agree that blaming the Local Authorities for a nationwide problem is pretty shoddy? What is she as the re going to do about it?”