7. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to increase the number of new secondary school teachers. (S6O-02638)

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the recruitment of more teachers, and we are providing £145.5 million in this year’s budget to protect increased teacher numbers and support staff across all local councils.

We work with partners to promote teaching as a highly rewarding career and the opportunity to make a difference to the lives of children and young people. The aim of that work is to improve recruitment and retention and to attract more highly qualified individuals into teaching in areas and subjects where they are needed most.

In addition, the strategic board for teacher education, which is made up of a range of key education stakeholders, is looking in detail at issues around the recruitment and retention of teachers in Scotland.

The Cabinet secretary must be disappointed that, last year, more than 800 vacancies went unfilled in our secondary schools. There is widespread concern about the lack of science, technology, engineering and mathematics teachers, particularly in rural areas. The golden hello, which is aimed at addressing shortages of rural teachers, has reaped disappointingly low levels of interest and take-up. Why is the Government struggling to meet its own targets for recruiting into secondary schools? More important, what reassurances can the Government offer parents and pupils that they will not be facing reduced subject choice because there are simply not enough teachers available to teach certain subjects?

I recognise Jamie Greene’s interest in the area. I know that he has asked a number of written parliamentary questions recently. He mentioned the golden hello. I declare an interest, having ticked the box back in 2008 and gone to Elgin for a year to teach. The preference waiver payment provides probationary teachers with an additional payment, as the member has alluded to.

More broadly, there has been a change in relation to how people engage with the system. I held a round-table meeting with probationers just before parliamentary recess and heard from them a number of different approaches to how they regard their employment, with people perhaps being less likely to move than they might have been in the past. We need to recognise that challenge, particularly in relation to Jamie Greene’s points on specific subjects.

We have a teaching bursary scheme, which gives bursaries of up to £20,000 for career changers wishing to undertake a one-year postgraduate qualification in the hard-to-fill STEM subjects that Jamie Greene alluded to, including physics, maths, technical education, computing, science, chemistry and home economics. That scheme has been extended to include Gaelic as a secondary subject and Gaelic medium across all secondary subjects and at primary level.

It is worth my while to point out that, since December 2014, the number of schoolteachers in Scotland has increased by 8 per cent. However, I recognise that there are subject-specific challenges, particularly in secondary schools. I have commissioned the strategic board for teacher education to look at the issue in further detail and to provide me with greater advice on how we can support the challenge.

Alongside the work to increase teaching numbers, retention is a key matter, which I think the Cabinet secretary has alluded to. What further work is the Scottish Government undertaking to promote and support retention across Scotland’s teaching profession?

The retention of teachers is absolutely key. Undoubtedly, the historic pay settlement that was reached earlier this year will go some way towards showing our teachers how valued they are in Scotland, but we are also working with our partners to promote teaching as a highly rewarding career, with, as I mentioned in my initial response, the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our young people. The aim of that work is to improve recruitment, as well as—in relation to Audrey Nicoll’s question—retention, and to attract more highly qualified individuals into teaching to make a difference in our classrooms.

In addition, as I mentioned in my response to Jamie Greene, the strategic board for teacher education is looking in detail at issues around the recruitment and retention of teachers in Scotland. I am looking to work with our teaching unions on that issue more broadly to consider how we can work together to encourage more people into teaching.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology has highlighted some of the problems that it is seeing in finding STEM teachers. I welcome the Cabinet secretary’s comments about bursaries. However, in that organisation’s report, it asked for a review of those bursaries, because they are not attracting people who work in STEM sectors to change careers and go into teaching. What more can the cabinet secretary do to attract those people into teaching?

Pam Duncan-Glancy raises an important point. She has touched on some of the additionality that we have provided, which I outlined in my response to Jamie Greene. There have been historical challenges in a number of different subjects over a number of years. For example, there are gender divides in the teaching of physics and maths, and we need to be cognisant of that and encourage more women into the teaching of those subjects and more generally.

I am more than happy to meet Pam Duncan-Glancy to talk about opportunities in this regard. Although I will not commit to a review while on my feet today, I am more than happy to look at the issue in a bit more detail. In our secondary school recruitment process specifically, there are gaps in certain subject areas, and we need to be cognisant that different action will be needed to respond to those challenges accordingly.