New teachers starting out in their careers are feeling “demoralised, disillusioned and disincentivised”, the Scottish Liberal Democrats have warned.
The party’s education spokesperson, Willie Rennie, made the comments after the Lib Dems revealed new data showing that, since 2018, 1,673 teachers have permanently left the register within five years of gaining provisional registration.
To teach in Scottish schools, teachers must be registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland.
The Lib Dems’ also shows that the number of new teachers leaving the register each year has more than doubled from 183 in 2018 to 374 in 2024.
Mr Rennie said: “Teaching is not as attractive a career as it once was. Who would want to face violence in the classrooms while salaries in industry race ahead?”
Mr Rennie called for principal teachers to be brought back for key subjects to make teaching “a more attractive career path”, as well as more in-class support and for teachers to have “the authority they need to halt violence in our schools”.
He said: “Scottish Liberal Democrats want to see properly resourced schools and education authorities with a plan for getting Scottish education moving in the right direction.”
Importance of teacher wellbeing
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “The Scottish government recognises and appreciates the hard work of our teachers. Our determination to support them led to an historic pay deal which now means that Scottish classroom teachers, on the main-grade scale, are the best paid in the UK.
“We also know how important wellbeing is to retaining teachers in the workplace. That is why we provided an additional £186.5 million in our budget, which was welcomed across the chamber, to restore teacher numbers, alongside an additional £29 million to support the recruitment and retention of the [additional support needs] workforce.”
The spokesperson added: “The cabinet secretary for education and skills [Jenny Gilruth] will also shortly hold a workforce roundtable with trade unions, local government, GTCS and other key partners to consider ways the teaching profession can be better supported and how new entrants can be attracted to the profession through a variety of pathways.”
You can now get the UK’s most-trusted source of education news in a mobile app. Get Tes magazine on and on
