BY AMY ROSE HARTE
TEACHING graduates in Donegal are being targeted by a new recruitment drive aimed at tackling teacher shortages in Scotland. The campaign, "Enjoy Teaching, Enjoy Life" was launched by Aberdeenshire Council this month and hopes to fill gaps in Scottish classrooms by luring Irish teachers overseas.
"There is a shortage of teachers in Scotland and it is notoriously difficult to recruit anybody to the Northeast," said Andrew Hillier, the Head of Corporate Communications at Aberdeenshire Council, "My understanding is that there are far more teachers produced in Ireland than there are jobs. So we need to make sure we get those teachers at the source".
Claire Ward, 29, is from Milford and heads the Modern Languages Department at a Loreto primary school in Edinburgh. She says the Scottish system is excellent and that the main difference with the two systems is that there is a huge push for modern languages at Scottish primary level. Claire is doing a chartered teaching course, where she studies 12 modules and with each one completed she moves to a new pay scale.
"That's the best thing about the Scottish system," says Claire. "In Ireland, if you have further qualifications they don't serve you any purpose so you have nowhere to really progress to unless you want to go into management. In Scotland I have put my masters in education to good use by doing a chartered teaching course. Every time I complete two modules on the course I go up one point on the chartered teaching scale. If you go through these channels, you can improve yourself and become a more specialised teacher. This means you can get more earning power out of staying in the classroom and not by pushing paperwork about in an office".
Claire began working in the private school three years ago, and says she got the job by registering with the General Teaching Council in the area. They put graduates on a register and allocate part-time teaching work.
"I have worked in different schools over here and it is a great system to work in. They're very big on expressive arts such as drama, music, and PE and they get kids into competitive sport from an early age. There is a huge amount of Government funding into these areas, and they are continuing to plough money into PE because of the rising levels of obesity", she says.
Claire did a degree in Humanities at the University of Ulster, Coleraine and completed a Primary PGC course in St. Andrews (now Glasgow University). She also has qualifications in teaching French and Spanish in the primary school. "In the Irish primary system, they don't really push for modern languages.
"That's a huge difference to over here. I work in a private school where they start learning languages from nursery level, and the public school they start around age nine. Kids in my sixth class would be at the same level as Junior Cert standard at home".
Claire says the Scottish system is an "excellent alternative" for anybody who didn't want to work at home, or who has difficulty finding employment. "From what I understand from the current trends at home there's not a lot of jobs available, so I would say it's not a bad second option over here. There has always been a huge amount of Irish people coming to Glasgow to do teacher training, and the close proximity to home means there was always great interest from Donegal. I would highly recommend the system, and they're huge on arts over here".
Aberdeenshire Council say that due to the early stages of the recruitment drive, no figures exist outlining the number of Donegal applicants. However, they do expect that there will be a huge level of interest from the county in the campaign. Most vacancies exist at graduate level. Gradutes can take up 'probationary jobs', allowing them to work with a school for one year to become fully qualified.
Aberdeenshire Council will launch their recruitment campaign shortly in Canada, Austrailia, New Zealand and South Africa. If you are a teaching graduate are interested in moving in Scotland, contact the council on 08456 08 12 07 or log onto their website www. aberdeenshire.gov.uk.
