Gilruth: Teachers in Scotland ‘more expensive’ to employ than in 2021

Teachers are “more expensive to employ” than they were in 2021, the Education Secretary has said as Scottish Government statistics showed only one in four newly qualified teachers secured a permanent job.

Government statistics for 2024-25 show that 2,294 newly qualified teachers completed their probation year, however, only 568 of those teachers secured a permanent post.

This amounts to one in four trainee teachers securing a permanent post.

Of those who do not find permanent work, 1,015 are in temporary or fixed-term contracts.

Speaking on BBC Scotland’s Breakfast radio programme, Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth said that meeting teaching unions’ pay expectations meant that hiring teachers is more expensive than in 2021.

She said: “We do think meeting those demands in terms of the teaching unions’ expectations on teacher pay was the right thing to do, but it has cost the Government in excess of £800 million pounds since 2021 so we recognise that challenge.”

However, she said that teacher numbers have increased due to Government funding: “Teacher numbers across the board since 2014 have increased, they are increasing in the past year alone thanks to extra funding that we put in in last year’s budget that was protected for this purpose.”

The Scottish Government said in their 2021 manifesto they would reduce teacher workload by employing 3,500 additional teachers and reducing maximum class contact time to 21 hours per week.

Ms Gilruth said the Government’s independent modelling found that teacher levels in 2023 were the correct amount to deliver such class contact commitments.

She said: “That’s why last year I protected funding in the budget. It was enhanced for councils to protect teacher numbers and bring them back to 2023 levels.

“There was also extra funding in that for ASN which also could be used to support teacher employment. It’s hugely important that, at central level, the Government protects that funding, but we don’t employ teachers, which is why we need our local authorities to use that protected budget to create more posts.”

Ms Gilruth also said she has been convening meetings with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) to look at “creative ways” to allow primary school teachers to consider retraining to teach secondary.

She said: “We are looking at creative ways in which primary teachers might want to consider retraining in secondary.

“Now that requires dual qualification, for example, so we’re working with the GTCS on how that might be facilitated.

“My officials are urgently working on a piece of work to that end because, where primary teachers might have the right qualifications, they can work in our secondary schools, and it’s important they’re supported to do that.”

Ms Gilruth also encouraged newly qualified teachers to select the option to be posted anywhere in the country, which is something she did when she qualified to teach in 2008-09.

She said: “You’re not guaranteed a job on qualification, you have to go out there and look for one. You have to apply to a range of different local authorities, that’s exactly the pathway that I followed.”

General secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) Andrea Bradley told BBC Scotland’s Breakfast radio programme: “We’ve seen something in the region of 20% of teachers in Scotland employed on a temporary basis.”

She added: “If you want to value education in Scotland, then, that means valuing the workforce that delivers that education.”