The allocation of student teacher school placements is a “lottery” that risks putting people off pursuing a career in the profession, teachers are warning.

Deep concerns about the “ludicrous” Student Placement System run by the General Teaching Council for Scotland have emerged during a parliamentary inquiry into teacher workforce planning.

The inquiry has uncovered the struggles faced by student teachers trying to balance family and work life, who may find out about their placements just days before starting at a school, be forced to take a daily three-hour round trip or face large travel costs.

Shaun Moore, a final-year primary student at the University of Glasgow told MSPs on the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee that the system was “not fit for purpose”. He said it created “a troubling lottery” in which universities send students to schools up to 90 minutes away from their home.

Before 2014, when the GTCS took over the running of the system, universities had more freedom to consider individual circumstances.

A secondary teacher with a young family, who asked not to be named, told Tes Scotland that she had been placed in a school that was at least an hour and 20 minutes’ drive from her Central Belt home. She “almost certainly would have had to drop out” for childcare reasons if her request for a change had been rejected.

The teacher, who knew of several other students who had been in similar positions, said the only personal circumstances considered were whether she had access to a car.

She was ultimately placed in a school only a short distance away - but only because her course tutor was willing to speak up on her behalf.

In written evidence to the committee, postgraduate languages teacher Hannah Cunningham said she knew of “students who have decided to quit because they have been placed too far away from home”.

Another student warned: “In my situation, with a young family, if I get placed beyond what I consider to be commutable (less than an hour), then I will walk away.”

Mark Melrose, a University of Edinburgh design and technology student teacher, told a meeting of the committee that he had found out about placements on the Wednesday and Thursday before he was due to start at a school on a Monday, both in weeks when he had assignments due on the Friday.

Another teacher found out at 10.30pm on a Friday about a placement due to start the following Monday, according to written evidence.

‘No time to prepare’

Mr Melrose said: “You can imagine the stress this adds to teachers who maybe can’t get into schools in time - it’s always nice to get into your school beforehand, meet the teachers, sort out the timetables, so you know what to expect when you go in.”

He found that it took much longer to get up to speed when he arrived at a school “cold”, with nearly a week “effectively wasted” sorting out his timetable; schools were also left in a difficult position if they only found out about a student placement at the last minute, he said.

Mr Melrose said the need for teachers to find accommodation and rental cars at short notice added to their stress, and led to them racking up large bills or even going into debt before claiming anything back.

William MacLeod, a University of the Highlands and Islands postgraduate technology teacher from the Isle of Lewis, had been placed in Ullapool, on the mainland, but had no way of claiming travel or housing costs.

Labour MSP Johann Lamont, a former teacher, said that the situations described by Mr Melrose and Mr MacLeod were “unhelpful in terms of your professional development - you’re not able to plan ahead and your school’s not able to plan ahead”.

James Dornan, the SNP MSP who is convener of the committee, said the situation “just seems completely and utterly ludicrous”.

Last October, Tes Scotland revealed that almost a fifth of secondaries and a quarter of primaries had failed to register with the school placement system. The news came weeks after a placement crisis in which, at its peak, more than 100 student teachers were without school places. Since then, the system has been changed so that schools have to opt out of the placement system, rather than opting in.

A GTCS spokesperson said: “It is the responsibility of universities to secure placements from their partnership local authorities and for those two parties to enter into discussions to achieve agreements, enabling the successful placement of a student teacher in a school.”

The maximum student travel time to a school placement is 90 minutes. The spokesperson said: “This travel time has been agreed by the Student Placement Management Group, which comprises representatives from across Scotland’s universities providing initial teacher education, local authorities and Scottish government. It is possible for system users to override this default travel time if they feel it is appropriate for an individual student.”