Posted by jeff.toronto
Due to a drop in teacher numbers across Scotland the Scottish Government has issued an instruction to ALL teacher training universities to stop offering places on their PG primary and secondary courses from March 24. Anyone inter-viewed since will not be offered a place. Anyone with an invite to an interview will NOT be interviewed for a place this year. This blunder came after the Government issued the target number to universities early in March. They said they needed 2,760 PG primary and secondary places for 2009-10. It is estimated this figure will be in the region of 30 per cent less, at 1,932 places or less.
Posted by Tengachaya
Where are you getting your information? I haven’t seen this in the news, and I had an interview in April and there was no indication that this would be the case.
Posted by jeff.toronto
You’d understand the Government’s fear about over-recruiting if you’d read some news articles over the last year about probation teachers not getting employment after their induction year. Imagine having 975 more teachers than you can afford to employ, all graduates, all voicing their frustration about a government which can’t figure out how many teachers to train.
Posted by Tengachaya
Wouldn’t it be better to reduce the intake of teachers next year and the following one? The Government would be in trouble if they didn’t fulfil their promises to recruit the trainees they’d agreed on. It would be a nightmare for the universities and government in terms of fairness. For students to be rejected because of being interviewed at a later date would open up one of the biggest cans of worms we’ve seen.
Posted by jeff.toronto
The teacher recruitment numbers were raised this year and after the census frozen. Councils are cutting staff numbers in line with the declining pupil roll, while the Government wants class sizes to decrease by having more teachers. It has realised that councils are ignoring this agreement and saving money by employing less teachers, so they need to cut recruitment now. Fairness doesn’t come into it. If the Government tells universities to stop recruiting, that’s what they’ll do. It will hit the press as soon as the unis start informing candidates that there are no places.
www.tes.co.ukcommunity, click on TES Scotland, prospective student teachers.
