Oil and gas workers in north-east could help tackle a major teacher shortage with government cash being invested to bring their expertise to the classroom.
Budding teachers will be given a share of the £12million Transition Training Fund to help people facing redundancy in the struggling energy sector find work.
The move was announced yesterday by education secretary Angela Constance at the Aberdeen Learning Festival – though the details are yet to be fleshed out.
Ms Constance hailed the “highly skilled oil and gas workforce” and said it was important to harness their skills to help the next generation, the future of the industry and the north-east.
She added that teacher shortages would be looked at across the region and stressed the announcement was one of a number of measures being taken by the Scottish government to help boost teacher numbers.
Government officials are working with Skills Development Scotland and the Energy Jobs Taskforce to help transfer skills into schools, particularly in areas such as [STEM subjects] science, technology, engineering and maths.
Ms Constance said: “We want to expand the pool of people who are interested in teaching and who are able to go forward into teacher training.
“We want to make that a reality and this fund will be part of that.”
Asked what portion of the fund would be spent on teaching, Ms Constance added: “We don’t want to dictate the size and the shape of that fund just now.
“I have instructed my officials as a matter of urgency to work very closely with local government and also Education Scotland, the energy sector taskforce and Skills Development Scotland
because we want it to be tailored and we want it to be effective to the north-east.”
The news was welcomed by Angela Taylor, the convener of Aberdeen City Council’s education committee.
She said: “The difficulty in recruiting and retaining teachers has been particularly challenging in STEM subjects.
“The news today that funding is being made available towards retraining will hopefully assist in alleviating the issues we face with recruitment.”
Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City councils have spent more than £30million in three years on supply teachers.
Last week, the Press and Journal reported there were a total of 187 vacancies across both authority areas.
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