MINISTERS should consider giving bursaries of up to £30,000 to encourage top science graduates into teaching, top academics have said.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh made the suggestion after concern over shortages of teachers in key subjects such as physics, chemistry and mathematics (Stem).
In England the government is offering lucrative bursaries to attract top science graduates into teaching and the Royal Society warned Scotland could even face a brain drain of talented teachers unless it replicates the scheme.
Read more: Teacher stop and search plans abandoned over school ethos damage fears
A submission to a Scottish Government strategy on the future of science education from the Royal Society states: "We recognise bursaries of up to £30,000 have been used in England and Wales in order to attract Stem graduates in to teaching in shortage subjects including physics, chemistry and computing.
"We would encourage the Scottish Government to monitor the output from the evaluation process with a view to informing Stem teacher recruitment and retention policy in Scotland.
"The government could also gather data on the extent to which Scottish Stem graduates are taking up the English and Welsh bursaries so as to ensure that potential Stem teachers in Scotland are not being lost."
Last year, the Scottish Government announced students on Stem teacher training courses could be fast-tracked to help deal with shortages.
However, the Royal Society said while it welcomed the commitment to increasing teacher numbers, it would be important new routes did not result in a lowering of standards.
Read more: Teacher stop and search plans abandoned over school ethos damage fears
Its report goes on to reiterate concerns previously expressed by the Royal Society of the unintended consequences of the current focus on testing of literacy and numeracy in primary and secondary schools.
The society report states: "Notably, the Deputy First Minister has stated that he is prioritising the focus on literacy, numeracy, and health and well-being over science.
"While it is absolutely right Government should articulate priorities, it needs to be alive to the consequences of this decision for Stem subjects, and the signal this sends out to learners, parents and schools, in particular."
Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland teaching union, called for a pay increase for all teachers rather than individual incentives.
He said: "There is clearly an ongoing challenge in attracting qualified people into the Stem subjects as many graduates in these areas will have a broad range of well-paid career opportunities open to them in industry.
"This is an issue that does require to be tackled, and the EIS believes the solution is to make teaching an even more attractive career option, for example, by tackling excessive workload and improving salary levels in line with other graduate professions."
Read more: Teacher stop and search plans abandoned over school ethos damage fears
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We have taken action to maintain teacher numbers and committed £88 million this year to make sure every school has access to the right number of teachers with the right skills.
"We are building on our existing inspiring teachers campaign to encourage more people into the profession and will shortly be launching a new recruitment campaign.
"We have increased student teacher intake targets for the fifth year in a row, and we are supporting the development of innovative approaches to initial teacher education, which will help get more teachers into the classroom for priority Stem subjects."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel