Council chiefs across the north and north-east have joined forces to demand showdown talks with Nicola Sturgeon over teacher shortages.
One civic leader warned last night that “we should all be worried” after the new school year began with almost 300 teaching posts unfilled across the regions – including 39 head teacher jobs.
Local authorities in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Moray, Highland, Orkney and Shetland have spent about £1million on job adverts in recent months because of the ongoing problems.
They are so concerned about the vacancies that they have now called a summit in October to try to produce solutions.
Jenny Laing, the leader of Aberdeen City Council, has spearheaded the initiative, personally writing to the first minister to
urge her to attend the meeting at the Beach Ballroom in Aberdeen on October 7.
The move emerged just days after the SNP leader vowed that she wanted to put her “neck on the line” and be “judged” on improving education in Scotland.
Aberdeen currently has vacancies for 36 primary teachers, four Additional Support Needs teachers, 19 at secondary schools – as well as nine head teacher roles at primaries and two at secondaries.
Neighbouring Aberdeenshire Council has 38 teacher and eight head teacher posts unfilled at primary level, and 35 vacancies at secondary, including one head teacher.
Highland Council needs 19 head teachers, although seven of the posts are being covered by other staff, as well as 39 primary teachers and 15 in secondaries.
Moray Council is short of 55 teachers- an average of one for every school in the region – while Orkney requires seven secondary and three primary teachers. Shetland has seven vacancies.
Mrs Laing said: “It’s quite clear that we all feel that despite local initiatives we have a problem in this area.
“I think we should all be worried, because in actual fact the education of our young people now will determine their paths going forward.”
The city council expects its rolls to rise by 31% in primaries by 2022 and 16% in secondaries.
“Coupled with the shortages at the moment that means that this will be an ongoing problem and the national government will have to help work out ways to address this,” said Mrs Laing.
A Scottish Government spokesman said it would confirm who would attend the summit nearer the time.
The high level talks are expected to consider the creation of a national task force to draw up an action plan to address the problem, as well as the introduction of a new allowance for public sector workers in the north-east – similar to London “weighting” – because of the high cost of living.
Aberdeenshire Council has piloted a scheme whereby it helps staff members retrain to become teachers, but still has vacancies.
Alison Evison, chairwoman of Aberdeenshire’s education committee, said: “It’s obviously a concern, and when you’ve got all of the local authorities in the north-east feeling the same problem we’ve got to look at the root causes of the issues.”
A Highland Council spokeswoman said: “With regard to primary and secondary teachers vacancies, as result of recruiting temporary staff, including agency and retired teachers, we have managed to cover most of our vacancies.”
Eileen Prior, executive director of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, said: “The issue has not gone away in the last year and in fact appears to be getting worse.
“We believe it is a matter for central government and local authorities, as well as the universities and General Teaching Council of Scotland, to address in a co-ordinated way. Our children deserve no less.”
Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said: “The EIS is willing to engage constructively with councils to explore ways to improve processes for teacher recruitment and retention.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said it welcomed the chance to discuss further action to address the issues
He added: “We are committed to ensuring schools have the right number of teachers with the right skills.
“That is why we acted to safeguard teacher posts for the next year by committing a £51million package of funding for Scotland’s local authorities to maintain teacher numbers and pupil teacher ratios at 2014 levels in 2015-16.”
“In each of the last four years the Scottish Government has also increased student teacher numbers.”
Teacher vacancies in the north and north-east
Aberdeen City
Primary teacher posts – 36
Additional Support Needs – 4
Secondary teacher posts – 19
Primary school head teachers – 9
Secondary school head teachers – 2
Aberdeenshire Council
Primary – 38
Secondary – 34
Primary head teachers – 8
Secondary head teachers – 1
Highland Council
Head teachers – 19
Primary – 39
Secondary – 15
Moray Council
Primary and secondary – 55
Orkney Islands Council
Primary -3
Secondary – 7
Shetland Islands Council
Primary – 3
Secondary – 4