SCHOOLS are facing teacher shortages in key subjects such as mathematics, physics and computing, new figures show.

According to Scottish universities more than 100 teacher training places went unfilled this year at a time when councils have already warned over unfilled vacancies.

Under new targets the Scottish Government aimed to train 146 maths teachers through a one year postgraduate entry course but only 76 places were filled.

Other subjects which failed to meet their targets included computing, religious education, Gaelic, technological education and physics.

Overall, one in five places on secondary postgraduate teacher education courses was not taken up.

However, additional places were filled in other subjects such as geography, history and modern studies because they were more applicants than places.

Professor Teresa Moran, convener of the Scottish Teacher Education Committee (STEC), which represents university schools of education, said it was a consistent challenge to attract sufficient candidates in key areas like Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths).

Bruce Robertson, an education policy adviser to the Scottish Government and member of the education directors’ body Ades, called for a shake up of teacher training.

He said ministers should consider offering incentives to encourage students to train in the Stem subjects, he said, as well as expanding teacher training education places at universities outside the Central Belt.

An EIS spokesperson said: "We believe there is a need for a nationally agreed minimum staffing standard to ensure consistent levels of education provision across Scotland.

"The number of teachers employed in some areas of the country and in some sectors of education, notably early years, are declining and this is a cause of significant concern.

"While employment rates for new graduate teachers are up, there are still significant challenges in filling teaching posts in some parts of the country so the Scottish Government will need to look at increasing student teacher numbers to ensure that there are no shortfalls in the future."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "We have recently introduced targets in each subject of the teacher education places the Scottish Government funds.

"This is to make sure we have the right number of teachers for each subject area and to increase the number of applicants in harder to fill subjects such as Stem.

"We have launched a national marketing campaign to attract more people into teaching, particularly in Stem subjects and targeted to rural areas which need extra help to recruit teachers."

The spokeswoman said student teacher numbers had been increased in each of the last four years with more places targeted where they were needed most.

Earlier this year local authorities in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Moray, the Highlands, Orkney and Shetland spent more than £1 million advertising for 270 vacant teaching jobs.