Meeting of the Parliament 29 January 2026 [Draft]
::As part of its budget, Aberdeenshire Council is expecting £9.4 million from the Scottish Government to maintain or increase teacher numbers and to reduce class contact time. However, that funding is at risk because teacher numbers have decreased as Aberdeenshire receives an insufficient number of newly qualified teachers through the Scottish Government’s teacher induction scheme, having failed to get nearly 40 per cent of the primary teachers and 70 per cent of the secondary teachers that it had requested. That trend is happening across all rural local authorities, because the Scottish National Party is not providing enough support to attract newly qualified teachers to those areas. Will the cabinet secretary confirm whether education in Aberdeenshire will be further penalised for the educational recruitment failings of the SNP Government?