IN SCHOOL corridors across Scotland, seasoned teachers fear they are becoming a minority, as increasing numbers of trainees flood into classrooms.
Whispers in the staffroom are growing in volume as they see pupils taught by trainees fresh out of university who have yet to gain full teacher status.
When they do qualify, after a year on "probation", they are turfed out of their jobs and repla
ced by a new cohort of enthusiastic recruits with little experience of coping with challenging pupils or with a wide range of abilities.
A new training scheme, the Teacher Induction Scheme (TIS), introduced in Scotland in 2002, is accused of creating a system whereby graduates, fresh out of university, are being used as cheap stopgaps for jobs.
Widely welcomed by graduating trainee teachers, TIS guaranteed them full-time paid posts for a year, known as their probationary year. It fast-tracks them to full teacher status, after just a year, with the General Teaching Council in Scotland, which regulates all teachers.
However, it has created employment uncertainty after that first year and headteachers stand accused of using probationers as cheap labour.
One experienced secondary teacher said: "It effectively means a probationer is being used every year to fill a post rather than go through the difficulty of finding a fully qualified teacher willing to take on a part-time permanent post.
"It means there is a lack of continuity for children. The system is being manipulated to use probationary teachers as stopgaps and job fillers. Some pupils find they are being taught through their whole curriculum experience by probationary teachers filling in."
The feeling among teachers is that the TIS could create a dearth of experience in Scottish schools if people are not guaranteed jobs after successful completion of their first year.
It also means there is potential for pupils to be taught for several years by a succession of teachers who do not pass their probationary year. In other words, they could be taught by trainees who will eventually be deemed not up to the accepted standard.
The problem is councils face increasingly tight budgets and probationers' salaries are lower. As a result, pupils, particularly those in the early years of secondary before exam work begins, can be taught by one probationer after another.
The Scotsman has learned that teachers' unions are now demanding a review of the system.
The full article contains 400 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
