Meeting of the Parliament 29 January 2026 [Draft]
::Last week, we launched a new national teacher recruitment marketing campaign, which includes activity designed to encourage those thinking about a career in teaching to consider teaching jobs outwith the central belt and in more rural areas. In addition, probationer teachers can receive a preference waiver payment of up to £8,000 if they are willing to complete their probation anywhere in Scotland, as part of the Government-funded teacher induction scheme. We have manually allocated PWP probationers in recent years, which has resulted in more probationers in hard-to-fill subjects being allocated to remote and rural areas. I have also convened a round-table discussion with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, trade unions, the General Teaching Council for Scotland and other key partners to explore urgent collective solutions to the challenges that were outlined in Alexander Burnett’s question and other teacher recruitment and retention challenges.