Oil workers are being asked to consider teaching in a bid to fill vacancies in the North-east.
Aberdeen City Council is “actively seeking” to attract people from the oil and gas sector to use their expertise to teach future generations.
The local authority’s latest vacancy figures show that 65 teaching positions remain unfilled across the city.
Councillor Angela Taylor, convener of the education and children’s services committee, said: “It is widely accepted that recruitment of teachers continues to be challenging in Aberdeen, and across the north of Scotland, particularly for primary schools and in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.
“The priority for all of us is to ensure that teacher vacancies do not impact on our children’s education.
“To meet the challenges of teacher recruitment and retention we are actively seeking to attract people to the profession from various sectors, including oil and gas.
“Unfortunately, with the recent downturn in the oil industry, many people in Aberdeen and indeed further afield, have been made redundant or are facing the possibility of redundancy.
“We recognise that people employed in those sectors may have engineering or science degrees, which would be transferable and meet the need for teachers delivering STEM subjects.”
Aberdeen City Council is part of the Distance Learning Initial Teacher Education (DLITE) programme with the University of Aberdeen. This initiative offers an 18-month, part-time distance learning professional graduate diploma in primary education.
The latest figures from the local authority reveal there are 54 vacancies for primary school teachers, one for a primary school head teacher, nine for secondary school teachers and one for a secondary school head teacher.
A total of 70 primary teachers and 39 secondary teachers have been recruited to permanent posts since August 2015.
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