Having worked in the tempestuous newspaper industry for almost 20 years and never lost a day's work to strike action, it is hard to comprehend the situation that has been deliberately created in Scottish education ("Supply teachers to strike", The Herald, December 9).
At the moment I am lucky in having a full-time job, but sadly not in the classroom teaching position I trained for and made considerable sacrifices for over the course of several years. I can fully understand supply teachers who are unable to afford to work for the derisory rates Cosla seems happy to describe as being voted for by teachers themselves.
Having trained with many extremely bright and employable young graduates, I am not surprised that many have voted with their feet and moved away from day-to-day supply work for more financially secure work or even moved abroad. The real casualties of this situation will turn out to be the children. And those in Catholic schools in particular, if the long list of schools phoning me each day is anything to go by.
It is time for parents to ask the question: how will my child's teacher receive training if no-one is available to cover their class? How long can schools function efficiently with the management team standing in front of classes? And how many children will need to be sent home when illness means the class teacher is not available and neither are supply teachers?
We know what Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning Michael Russell's answer is. Train more teachers. Is that not how we found ourselves in this situation in the first place?
The real solution is a return to paying supply teachers a rate that will stop them leaving the country to teach abroad. Is this not the same argument put forward by our captains of industry? If it is good enough for bankers, then surely it is good enough for the professionals to whom we entrust our children every day?
Donald Macdonald,
1 Clair Road, BIshopbriggs.
I WOULD like to congratulate you for your coverage of the treatment of supply teachers by Cosla during the 2011 changes to contract. One example given in your editorial ("A case of supply and command", The Herald, December 9) discussed the events which would trigger a change of contract, returning the teacher to the five days of reduced pay. Unfortunately some less-than-generous employers are taking this a step further and dictating that even when working in the same department of the same school a new contract is started when covering for a second teacher, returning the poor supply teacher to the reduced pay rate again. Theoretically a teacher could be employed in one school for the whole year in a succession of five-day contracts covering for different members of staff and never be paid at the correct rate. Is it any wonder that supply teachers are becoming scarcer and scarcer with some schools having to entertain multiple classes in the assembly hall for periods when no staff are available? I have no doubt that education will suffer when the flu season starts, with our young people joining supply teachers in paying the true cost of this disgraceful decision.
Ann Ballinger,
63 Glen Sannox Drive,
Cumbernauld.
There is a difference between absence and truancy ("Red faces at figures that fail to add up", The Herald, December 8). Young people may be absent from school because they are ill, or because parents, for whatever reason, condone their absence. Truants fail to attend without the knowledge of their parents, and often put themselves at risk of different kinds of harmful behaviour; school staff however are assiduous in trying to prevent it. I doubt that there were 1.6 million days of truancy last year.
You report that youngsters might be opting out of school because of the reduced jobs market for young people. This may be well be the case, but there are a number of other factors. Glasgow, for instance, has reduced the number of Attendance Officers whose work is devoted to building home-school links, and improving attendance. It may be that amongst the "lost" teachers are pastoral care staff whose job it is to investigate absence, and encourage good attendance in imaginative and supportive ways.
Youngsters may increasingly feel that school-based certificates, as the Curriculum for Excellence envisages, may not stand them in such good stead as more objective national exam passes. All these are possible reasons, like the one mentioned by your correspondent, for pupils turning away from education.
Joan Hoggan,
26 Blane Crescent, Blanefield.
I AGREE with Hugh VS McIntyre (Letters, December 7). It is possible to produce anecdotal evidence of a higher standard of literacy in the 1950s.
Tidying up my books I came across Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I was awarded this in 1958 for first place in Primary 4 in Eastriggs Primary School. I remember devouring it with glee. The following year, I received Greenmantle by John Buchan, sparking a lifelong love of this author. I wonder how many Primary 4/5 children these days would be capable of undertaking such reading tasks?
Moira Currie,
34, McIntosh Drive,
Elgin.
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