Universities have been unable to fill more than one-in-10 places on secondary teacher training courses, TESS can reveal.

Uptake this academic year on the most popular route into secondary teaching - the one-year postgraduate PGDE - was 16 per cent below target, with 214 out of 1,350 places going unfilled when over-recruitment to subjects such as history and geography is adjusted for.

The figures call into question whether the government would be able to fill the extra 371 places on teacher education courses announced last week. They have prompted the secondary headteachers organisation School Leaders Scotland (SLS) to call on ministers to increase teachers’ wages in a bid to make the career more attractive.

While SLS general secretary Jim Thewliss welcomed the Scottish government’s efforts to address teacher shortages, he said that teaching was a graduate profession and salaries were not competitive.

Mr Thewliss said: “The progress made is good but you have got to pay the rate that’s going to attract people, and just now that’s undoubtedly an issue.”

TESS reported last week that in ongoing national pay negotiations, teaching unions were urging the government and councils to bring Scottish teachers’ salaries into line with other Western countries, where teachers can earn up to 30 per cent more.

Music and RE struggle

Subjects that universities found tough to recruit to for the secondary PGDE course included those already known to be suffering a shortage of teachers, such as technological education, home economics and maths.

However, the subject with the highest proportion of unfilled places was music, at almost half of places (19 out of 46). Religious education also made it into the top-three hardest-to-recruit-to specialisms.

Mr Thewliss said that he was unaware of schools struggling to recruit music teachers, but that RE was becoming increasingly popular with pupils and demand for teachers was therefore on the rise.

Primary courses, meanwhile, exceeded their targets, as did some traditionally tough-torecruit-to specialisms, such as physics, for which the government target was to train 60 teachers via the PGDE, while universities managed to recruit 61.

Despite this, the numbers, obtained by TESS from the Scottish government, cast doubt on whether the government would succeed in its goal of attracting 3,861 student teachers in the coming academic year - the largest cohort in a decade and an increase of 371 students on the current academic year.

If universities are successful, however, TESS understands that another hurdle would be finding school placements for the recruits. In 2016, more than 100 students were left in limbo when universities were unable to secure them practical experience - an integral part of teacher education courses - for them in schools.

Optimism about new routes

However, Morag Redford, chair of the Scottish Council of Deans of Education, told TESS that there had been a “major change” to the way the Student Placement System worked. Schools would now have to opt out of taking students, as opposed to opting in, she explained.

Speaking about the increase in trainee teachers, Dr Redford said universities were “optimistic” that the £1 million invested in 11 new routes into teaching - designed by schools of education and unveiled by education secretary John Swinney last year - would bring a wider group of people into the profession. The plans include fast-tracking science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates into the profession, as well as recruiting from Ireland, where there is currently a teacher surplus.

The progress made is good but you have got to pay the rate that’s going to attract people, and just now that’s undoubtedly an issue

Announcing the new increase in training funding, Mr Swinney said that he recognised the new targets were “stretching”, but added that universities were being supported to meet them through the new routes into the profession and the government’s teacher-recruitment campaign.

In the current academic year, 1,350 places were available on secondary postgraduate courses - the most common route by which students enter secondary teaching in Scotland. Of the target places, 1,136 were filled. However, because of over-recruitment to some subjects, 1,198 secondary teachers are currently training via this route.

Of the 397 places on undergraduate secondary teaching courses, 56 places (14 per cent) were unfilled.

The universities succeeded in attracting 1,248 students onto the primary PGDE - 13 more than targeted. They also recruited an additional 94 primary students onto their primary undergraduate courses, attracting a total of 804 students, when the recruitment target was 710.

@Emma_Seith