NATIONAL teacher training targets in more than half of secondary school subjects have been missed.

Scottish Government figures show recruitment shortages have hit 12 out of 20 subject areas including English, physics, chemistry, modern languages, geography and maths.

The overall target for secondary school teachers was missed by 208 places.

The figures come after concerns a recruitment crisis in schools fuelled by stagnant pay and rising workload is undermining the quality of Scottish education.

However, the figures also show the overall target for primary schools has been exceeded with student teacher intake increasing for the third year running - with nearly 4,000 new student teachers this year.

The number of vacancies in primary and secondary schools also fell.

John Swinney, the Education Secretary, said the figures proved new measures to increase teacher numbers were working.

He said: “We have increased targets for recruitment into initial teacher education and created new routes to make it more practical and flexible for people to access courses.

“Fewer teaching vacancies across the country, including significant reductions in jobs advertised for more than three months, also demonstrates the impact of our investment in attracting new talent to the profession.”

However, the Scottish Liberal Democrats accused the Scottish Government of “skewing the facts”.

Tavish Scott, the party’s education spokesman, said: “These statistics shed light on serious failures to meet student teacher intake targets.

“John Swinney should be ashamed of this blatantly skewed presentation of the facts. What they really show is that the teacher recruitment crisis is alive and well.”

Iain Gray, education spokesman for the Scottish Labour Party, accused the Government of “desperate spin”.

He said: “Any increase in the number of teachers in training is to be welcomed, but only by improving the salary and level of resources available to our teachers will the Government be able to ensure new teachers are actually retained.”

The figures showed the number of posts in secondary schools advertised for more than three months fell from 229 last year to 148 this year. The figure is still higher than in 2016, when only 75 posts remained unfilled for more than three months.