It was just a year ago that the Scottish government announced a new “fast-track” route into teaching. The vision was that up to 50 science, technology, engineering and maths graduates would become teachers on a shortened six-month course.

At the time, education secretary John Swinney said: “This innovative proposal is designed to broaden the range of people entering the profession - providing a challenging, yet extremely rewarding, opportunity to train in rural schools within areas of high deprivation.”

Back in the present day, the course hasn’t quite managed to broaden that range as much as was hoped. It has been revealed that just 25 students will make up the first cohort. The University of Dundee, which is running the course with the University of the Highlands and Islands, defended the figure, saying that 50 had not been a target “but the upper limit of available places” and that if it had not been for the new model, “many of the students would have been unable to enter teaching via the conventional route”.

It added: “As a result, 25 talented graduates with a desire to embark upon a career in teaching, who might otherwise have been lost to the profession, were able to take their place on this course.”

The 25 trainees will take courses in home economics or a Stem subject.

The struggle to fill places on the course isn’t the first stumbling block that the programme has hit. In 2017, concerns were voiced that it would allow the fast-track teacher training charity Teach First to “get a foothold in Scotland”.

The charity later pulled out of the process, saying that it was concerned that the project deadline was too close to develop the scheme it wanted to introduce.

The government’s 12 other new routes into teaching haven’t fared that well either. Last month, Tes Scotland revealed that 39 per cent of the places on the new programmes had gone unfilled.