A general though not dramatic easing of teacher shortage is reported from Scottish education authorities. There is still poor supply of mathematics teachers and there is a growing shortage of technical teachers.
The Roman Catholic schools in the west, which have been generally more difficult to staff, seem to be coping, thanks to a much increased output from Notre Dame.
* The convener of Glasgow education committee, Dr Daniel Docherty, has said he is not the least bit upset by the fact that the city’s local medical committee had advised general practitioners not to countersign application forms for free school milk.
Parents still had available to them the members of staff of the school health service who would carry out the examinations, he said.
* Two new primaries have opened side by side in Coatbridge - Sikeside Road and St Stephen’s RC - and their one shared facility is the boilerhouse. There were hopes that much more would be shared - for instance, assembly hall, kitchens, dining hall.
* NUS Scotland’s chairman is Mr Dougie Henderson, who is taking a year off his economics course at Strathclyde University. Having already had a sabbatical as Strathclyde student association’s president, he thinks he is probably getting bit old (at 22) for student politics.
He wants to see student unions acting more like real unions. The trade union attitude among students, he thinks, has grown in recent years, replacing the attitude that favoured discussions over sherry.
He sees one of his first tasks as unionising the small FE colleges which so far have no student representation. There are about 53 such colleges, he reckons, mainly away from the urban centres, but including such as Falkirk and Kirkcaldy technical colleges.
TES SCOTLAND, SEPTEMBER 3, 1971
