Dundee Convener of Children and Families’ Services, Councillor Stewart Hunter, believes the city has taken the steps needed to ensure school teachers are in place for the start of term.
Mr Hunter said unprecedented steps had been taken in recent months to secure staff, with a 19% increase in interviews for primary teachers.
Significant efforts have also been made to secure the specialist secondary teachers needed to fill the gaps in classrooms at high schools across the city.
In addition to undertaking more interviews that ever before, the council has also approached recently retired teachers in an effort to convince them to resume some duties.
Key, however, has been the steps taken to attract new teachers and in that attempt, Mr Hunter believes the city itself has played its part.
He told The Courier: “We have done a great deal of work to appeal to newly qualified teachers, encouraging as many as possible to take up posts.
“I think this has been more successful than in recent years because Dundee is increasingly seen as a good place to come and teach.
“There is a lot of progress being made with the Waterfront and V&A but the new teachers also see the work we are doing through our attainment challenge and improving schools.
“Instead of just trying to get the exact number of teachers we need – and then seeing them take another post at the last moment – we have been making more offers than ever before.
“There will be attrition, but if we do get more people accepting than we need, then we will be able to build our supply pool around the city.
“Secondary school provides us with certain challenges as a primary teacher can teach from P1 to P7, but a secondary teacher is specialised.
“There are regularly shortages of teachers in some subjects, but it is not always the same subjects year to year.
“We are doing a lot of good work right now and I am as confident as it is possible to be that posts will be filled.
“There have been let-downs in the past and we will have to wait until August to see the reality, but we are in a good place.”
