Only around 10 per cent of last year’s probationers did not receive a permanent job after completing their induction year, a survey of education authorities has revealed.
The findings were reported to the meeting of the General Teaching Council in Edinburgh last week by Myra Pearson, the depute registrar.
But she said that, of those who did land permanent jobs, it was not clear whether these were permanent jobs in a school or supply posts.
The GTC would be asking teachers who had just been granted full registration where they were now and what they were doing, Ms Pearson added.
May Ferries, a council member and a depute primary headteacher in Glasgow, argued that, while the new induction arrangements were dramatically better than the situation that existed before the teachers’ agreement, it was a matter of serious concern that newly-qualified teachers of great quality could not find permanent jobs when Scottish schools were experiencing a crisis in supply cover.
The council also heard it has been thwarted in its attempts to abolish a voting category of members which it argues is too small to merit separate representation.
When the GTC was reorganised in 2000 under the Standards in Scotland’s Schools Act, the Executive insisted on introducing a new voting group for teachers of pre-school children who do not work in a primary or nursery school, but are employed elsewhere.
Council members were told by Matthew MacIver, the registrar, that only 50 registered teachers fell into this particular category - mainly those who work in private or voluntary sector pre-school establishments.
However, they were also told that both the GTC’s lawyers and the Scottish Executive’s lawyers believed that circumstances had not changed to a sufficient extent to allow such a change to be made without primary legislation.
Council member Jim Thomson likened the new voting category to the “creation of a rotten borough”.
Bill Guthrie, another member, said if the principle of proportional representation were applied, this group would not be represented. At present, the 50 members in the category have one elected member - Linda Fisher-Dougan, who works in a pre-assessment centre in Paisley. The GTC wants to allocate that particular seat to the section for primary and nursery teachers.
