17 May 2017
A Scottish Government report has once again confirmed the serious issues facing teacher training in Scotland.
The ITE analysis report commissioned by the Scottish Government revealed a huge variation in the amount of time being set aside to teach literacy on teacher training courses.
It showed that some universities are only dedicating 4 hours respectively to the teaching of numeracy and literacy.
It backs up evidence heard by the education committee last week where several trainee teachers stated that they had only received a week’s training on literacy.
The report was published ahead of a Scottish Conservative debate this afternoon that will set out new policies to improve literacy and numeracy in schools – following growing evidence that Scotland’s standards are slipping.
Scottish Conservative shadow education secretary Liz Smith said:
“This is yet another damning report into the SNP’s record on education.
“Even their own studies show that trainee teachers are not receiving enough training on literacy.
“With literacy rates in our schools plummeting this is simply not good enough, and it’s time that the SNP took action.
“Ever since the Donaldson Report was published we’ve known that this was an issue, but in ten years of SNP government things are going backwards.
“Scots want to see our education system improve, and they want Nicola Sturgeon to ditch her plans for a second referendum and get back to the day job.”
A copy of the report is available here.
Graph 5 on page 23 shows the number of dedicated hours to each key area.
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