§ 13. Mr. Monroasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many secondary school teachers qualified at the colleges of education this session and how many have accepted employment, respectively, in Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Glasgow and Dumfriesshire.
§ Mr. Robert HughesAbout 3,000 secondary teachers will qualify this session. Of this number, 265 have so far accepted employment in Lanarkshire, 341 in Glasgow. 207 in Renfrewshire and 20 in Dumfriesshire.
§ Mr. MonroIs the hon. Gentleman aware that we are glad that there has been such a large number of successful candidates from colleges of education? Will he do everything possible to see that education authorities fulfil their promise to recruit only to those areas which are seriously short-staffed, so as to help the pupil-teacher ratio in the next session?
§ Mr. HughesThe hon. Gentleman knows that an appeal was sent to those education authorities outside areas of stress asking them to restrain recruitment, but I am afraid that the replies have been generally disappointing. Only eight authorities have given a commitment to restrain their recruitment without further action. I can only express the hope that education authorities will accept that there are serious problems in the west of Scotland and will limit their own recruitment.