YOU noted last week that 63 per cent of doctors in Scotland are able to afford to work part-time – to enjoy a better quality of life – and this is leading to shortages ("Shock as one in four GP practices short of doctors", The Herald, March 7). There are also serious shortages –estimated at up to 1,000 – in the teaching profession.
Unlike the medical profession, who have enjoyed some of the highest earnings in Europe since the Blair settlement, the teaching profession in Scotland has seen the disastrous combination of failed top-down curriculum for excellence reforms combined with low pay. What experienced teacher wants to work for the derisory "supply" payments for part-time working, never mind the failure of successive governments to address the issues of full-time pay and conditions?
If the Scottish Government wants to plug the gaping hole in teacher provision until enough new full-time but inexperienced young teachers are trained, it would appear it needs to attract back an army of experienced teachers on at least a part-time, if not a full-time basis.
It is now evident that without successful bottom-up radical reforms in conditions and pay this army will not march. The consequences for this failure in policy in the provision and quality of Scottish education look dire.
Elizabeth Marshall,
Western Harbour Midway, Edinburgh.
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