This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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More teachers set to teach
15/02/2005
"Hundreds more student teachers are learning the skills
they need to make a difference to young lives", Education
Minister Peter Peacock said today.
This year almost 700 more students are enrolled on post
graduate certificate of education (PGCE) courses - up by
over 30 per cent on last year. There are now 5765 teachers
in training.
Numbers will continue to rise to meet the commitment to
have 53,000 teachers by August 2007 and cut class sizes - a
commitment the Education Minister said he was "very
confident" would be met.
Currently, Scotland has:
- 2397 students on PGCE courses - up from 1722 in
2003/4;
- 3368 students on Bachelor of Education (B.Ed)
courses - up from 3334 in 2003/04;
- On the B.Ed courses, 736 are final year students -
compared with 683 last year.
The number of students on full time PGCE courses next
year will increase to 3350:
- 1,900 for secondary
- 1,450 for primary.
Speaking on a visit to meet teachers in the Borders, Mr
Peacock said:
"We are committed to reducing class sizes to help
further raise standards in Scottish education.
"Without our historic decision to end the link of
teacher numbers to falling rolls the number of teachers in
Scotland would continue to decline. Instead teacher numbers
are set to rise.
"We are now training more teachers and next year we will
train even more and attract teachers from other countries.
Across Scotland, we have 5,765 student teachers learning
the skills they need to make a difference to pupils'
lives.
"Teaching in Scotland is now an attractive and
well-rewarded profession. That, coupled with our
comprehensive education reform programme, means we will
continue to attract high quality student teachers into
training to fill the vacancies we are creating by expanding
the number of posts.
"In a workforce of close to 50,000 teachers, only 335
posts were vacant for more than three months - less than
one per cent of the total workforce. I want to see that
number fall and the extra teachers coming out of training
will do just that.
"Pupil numbers continue to fall dramatically. This means
councils are having to take tough decisions about education
in their local area. But it is also an opportunity to
revitalise and modernise our schools, ensuring they are all
fit for the challenges of 21st century education and to get
the best pupil teacher ratios we have ever had."
The Executive is committed to increasing teacher numbers
to 53,000 by 2007. These additional teachers will be used
to reduce class sizes to a maximum of 25 in P1 and 20 for
maths and English in S1/2.
There are currently 788,400 pupils in publicly-funded
Scottish schools (including pre-school). This is expected
to fall to 674,800 by 2014.
The numbers of students on PGCE courses has risen from
1535 in 2002-03, to 1696 in 2003-04 and 2356 in 2004-05.
The projected intake for 2005-06 is 3422.