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Education and Skills Committee 31 May 2017

31 May 2017 · S5 · Education and Skills Committee

Item of business

Workforce Planning (Schools)

Swinney, John SNP Perthshire North Watch on SPTV

I welcome the opportunity to give evidence and to set out the foundations of the Government’s approach to the delivery of workforce planning in education. In Scotland, we have a flexible and child-centred school curriculum that is part of a wider policy framework to meet the diverse needs of all our young people at every stage of their journey through life. Young people are educated in modern, accessible buildings, and we have an evidence-based approach to improvement. The most crucial component is ensuring that children get the right support to learn at the right time, and teachers are key to that. They are key to children’s achievements at school and to supporting our ambitions to raise the bar for all and close the attainment gap. That is why the committee’s inquiry into the teaching workforce is important and why ensuring that we have a sufficient supply of high-quality teachers is a key policy priority for the Government. The evidence to the committee has fallen into two main areas—first, concern about the skills of newly qualified teachers, and secondly, discussions about the national approach to workforce planning. In relation to teachers’ skills, I was concerned by the evidence that trainee teachers presented about their experience of teacher education. I am also concerned by the findings of the research that I published two weeks ago, which analysed initial teacher education courses and found significant variations in the time that is spent on key components of the curriculum, with the widest variation in the crucial area of literacy. The committee also identified, in its report on additional support for learning, a lack of focus on ASL in initial teacher education and training. I will meet the General Teaching Council for Scotland and the Scottish Council of Deans of Education to consider the available evidence and to establish how teacher education can be strengthened. Improvement is essential, but evidence highlights the fact that teacher education in Scotland is strong. Our universities are of high quality, and our evaluation of the teaching Scotland’s future programme indicated that the experience of teacher education programmes, including student placements and the probation scheme, is positive. The committee has heard that initial teacher education is just that—initial. Student teachers need the right foundation from initial education, but they are also entitled to on-going professional development, particularly in the core curricular competencies, to foster their confidence and competence. My sense is that that remains an area for further work by the Government, but also by the GTCS, Education Scotland, local authorities and the Scottish College for Educational Leadership. The committee has discussed the way in which, in conjunction with partners, we plan for the recruitment of new teachers. We have made a number of improvements to the workforce planning model, which include taking into account local authority vacancies, starting the process earlier in the year and asking universities to work together to allocate places. We will continue to refine the approach through the recently reconvened teacher workforce planning working group. To ensure that we have enough teachers in our schools, we have taken steps to maintain teacher numbers and have increased intakes into universities for the sixth year in a row. We are supporting the development of new routes to teaching, and we have over the past two years invested in a recruitment campaign, which we will invest in again this year. The campaign is a central plank in the Scottish Government’s efforts to increase the number of teachers. It has a particular focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects this year, and I am delighted that the undergraduates whom the campaign has targeted have shown significant interest in considering a career in teaching. We need to ensure that our skilled educational professionals are empowered and supported to make the most of opportunities and responsibilities for the benefit of all children. I therefore intend to issue a next-steps paper next month that will set out how we will deliver our ambitions to empower teachers, parents, children and communities. I remain committed to ensuring that everything that we do empowers our schools to deliver excellence and equity for all in Scottish education.

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Education and Skills Committee 31 May 2017

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