Part of Education and Lifelong Learning – in the Scottish Parliament at 2:15 pm on 13 September 2007.
The member can be assured that we will continue to work with local authorities. No Government trains teachers for the dole queue. Members of the 2007 cohort of about 3,350 probationers are able to apply for posts, and around 3,000 of them are already in post. Over the past month or so, more than 600 posts have been advertised. Given that we know that we must train teachers for the whole of the year, we believe that almost all those teachers will be in post. There are many jobs out there, including supply posts. We do not want teachers to have the worry that other graduates have of not finding a post as soon as they finish their courses, but we believe that, in the light of the additional posts that we have announced, there will be a balance between the number of people who are trained and the number of posts that are available.