A serious shortage of supply teachers is weakening the ability of schools across Scotland to progress the education of their pupils across the curriculum.
School teaching is a cannibalistic profession, making so many demands upon teachers in a single day and all under the pressure to deliver on the moment. This means that teacher sickness is a feature of the life of any school, as are staff vacancies awaiting recruitment – prolonged in the case of some specialist subjects – maternity leave etc.
Education provision in any area can only reliably be delivered through the ready supply of qualified tachers ready to step in at short notice, sometimes for undefined periods of time.
These vital links in the service have been falling in number and Education Secretary Michael Russell has admitted that there is now a problem.
The pressure this passes on to pupils and their parents is considerable. Today, specialist degree courses at good universities set the highest possible admission standards, so anything that reduces the continuity and concentration with which a pupil is supported in their study causes genuine stress in the worry that necessary grades will not be achievable.
Mr Russell has pointed out that there is not necessarily a shortage of supply teachers in all subjects or at all schools and that the shortfall is greater in certain local authority areas.
However, the worry must centre on the subjects in which Scotland most needs its pupils to succeed at the highest level and in which the evidence suggests our education system is already failing to prepares pupils adequately.
The number of universities today who have found it a necessity to provide remedial education for first year degree students is undeniable proof of a situation that is far from acceptable.
The likelihood has to be that supply teachers will generally be available in the smallest numbers in the most specialist subjects of maths and the sciences. The generic additional shortage we now face will affect that situation even more negatively.
There is an unsatisfactory ongoing situation in Oban High School which parents are not prepared to go on the record abut in case it rebounds on their children; but their concerns are such that many have spoken to us off the record, creating a picture which is disturbing.
It appears that it is now commonplace there for pupils to find themselves without their normal teacher and ‘given something to watch’ or ‘something to do’.
Some pupils have been lacking in tuition in specific subjects on a pretty regular basis.
Several, working with ambition to achieve places at prestigious universities and needing A grades across the board to have a chance, are stressed at the impediment to their chances – as are their parents.
Some classes and some subjects are prey to the ‘lightning does strike twice’ experience and are serially deprived of teaching in the subject specialisms they are entitled to expect.
A well found estimate by someone concerned about this situation has indicated that at any one time, something like 80 pupils at Oban High School are in classes which are dsrupted i this way and effectively under little but care and control.
Headmaster Peter Bain has recently defended the situation in an interesting choice of words, saying that there is no problem, that he is confident that at any time he ‘can put a teacher before every class in the school’.
This does not mean that he can put the right teacher before each of those classes.
We are aware that the problems at Oban High School are neither singular in cause nor straightforward but it may well by that the national shortage in supply teacher has a major part to play in the situation.
The school recently lost quite a number of its teaching staff – at the end of the summer term – and, in a shortage scenario, recruitment to replace departing staff can be a slow enough process.
Parents feel that their concerns are not being taken seriously. Many are afraid to raise issues that are worrying them and all are afraid to talk on the record. Some told us that pupils who go to the library at lunchtime have been referred to at a senior level within the school as ‘geeks’. If this is the case, it may well have been a humorous remark but an ill-judged one, in appearing to decry the interest in learning and discovery that underpins the most successful.
The last thing the declining Argyll needs is any indication of a culture of education that is uninterested in growing the best talents and may seem scornful of ambition.
It is fair to say that there is a fairly widespread concern amongst parents with the management of their children’s education at the moment. There are also staff who appear to have their own concerns.
Oban is one of Argyll five major towns and arguably the best known. It cannot afford to see its young people’s secondary education a source of worry rather than of confidence.
In these hard financial times, some parents are finding it even harder through having to pay for extra-curricular tuition for their children to make up the gap in what is being provided at the school.
Parents are in a position where they have no choice but to accept the situation. There is no other local secondary school to which they can send their children. Few could even contemplate private education. The school’s broad catchment area means that the consequences of its failings now will impact on families in a considerable spectrum of communities into the future.
The town also has the esteemed Scottish Association of Marine Science, a serious international player in research and teaching in marine sciences, with an enviable record in research at the highest level and in areas associated with climate change and the marine environment which chime centrally with today’s challenges.
A struggling secondary school in the obvious ‘feeder catchment’ for a facility like this that we are lucky to have, is to everyone’s disadvantage.
The shortage of supply teachers will be a factor in the situation in Oban. It may not be the whole story – and underlying issues clearly need to be addressed – but every single improvement in any aspect of the education of our children is a compound gain.
