By Ann McKechin, Head of corporate social responsibility, ScottishPower

IT’s difficult to miss the increasingly frequent news reports about teacher shortages and the ongoing issue of unfilled places across Scotland’s teacher training colleges. The new announcement by John Swinney of a premium payment of £20,000 to encourage more professionals to switch careers into education shows this concern is shared by government too. The problem is particularly acute in the Stem subjects – Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths – the very areas where our country is already short of skilled workers.

Teachers are under increasing pressure to keep up with rapidly changing technology and the impact this has in turn on the jobs of the future. It’s sobering to consider that many of the jobs that will be available five years from now may not even yet exist. Perhaps it is little wonder an estimated 25 per cent of teacher training places remain unfilled.

That’s why a key aim for the ScottishPower Foundation in deciding where to allocate its charitable support – this year totalling a record £1.8 million – is to ensure educational projects seeking financial help focus not only on pupils, but also address how teachers better understand the challenges we face in the 21st century.

Since it was formed the ScottishPower Foundation has supported education both in the form of its own masters degree scholarship programme, though which it is giving £700,000 to help 28 students, and also in its backing of a number of innovative projects targeted at inspiring school children both inside and outside the classroom. Over the last four years the foundation has partnered with National Museums Scotland to deliver its Get Energised programme, including its new Energise gallery in Edinburgh, and most recently to develop National Museums’ nationwide science engagement activity, which will be targeted to schools and teachers who find it hard to access these types of resources.

From Boulton & Watt’s steam engine to Dolly the Sheep, National Museums holds an amazing repository of Scotland’s engineering and scientific achievements and we want to ensure that as many of our children as possible can find inspiration from that. Ensuring that there is opportunity for families to learn outside the school gate can be the spark that significantly alters a child’s perception of the world around them.

National Museum of Scotland’s Science and Technology galleries, including Energise, have successfully established a range of world-class in-gallery experiments, science shows, family days and workshops to provide children with exactly these types of experiences. Our continued support of the gallery and the Get Energised programme, a partnership worth more than £250,000 to date, is recognised by teachers as an excellent and engaging Stem initiative investigating the real challenges scientists and engineers in Scotland face every day, looking at areas such as landscape, renewable energy and weather.

The programme has now been expanded to include primary school pupils. We are delighted that we can now also support staff in primary schools with a range of new materials and techniques to make these subjects engaging and relevant to younger minds.

But, like Mr Swinney, we also recognise teachers need practical support. We are committed to supporting Stem workshops at the Engineering Education Centre at Dumfries House in Ayrshire which aim to inform not only children and their parents, but also develop professional practice for teachers so they have greater confidence promoting Stem learning in the classroom.

Investing in helping teachers to prepare our children for a fast-changing future makes perfect sense. We hope that our funded projects will encourage others to consider how they can expand this vital support.