HOLYROOD funding of £88 million for schools in Fife could be under threat if the numbers in the classrooms don’t add up.

Scottish Government money is dependent on Fife Council’s commitment to maintain teacher numbers in line with the number of pupils. But a national teacher shortage means education chiefs are struggling to fill posts while the pupil roll is rising.

Shelagh McLean, head of education and children’s services, said: “The Scottish Government overall funding package of £88m is provided to maintain the pupil/teacher ratio nationally in local authority schools, at a level of 13.7, and to provide a place on the Teacher Induction Scheme for every probationer.

“The financial implications of not meeting the pupil/teacher ratio could, therefore, be significant.”

Punitive action, however, would be very harsh as she explained in a report to last week’s education committee: “In Fife, the overall pupil roll is increasing; the increase requires the creation of new teaching posts.

“This means that, to continue to meet this commitment, we are required to increase the overall number of teachers employed, specifically within the secondary sector. However, the national teacher shortage is impacting on all local authorities, Fife is no exception, and therefore the ability to recruit additional teachers, particularly within the secondary sector, to meet the commitment has been, and continues to be, challenging.”

Ms McLean said Fife had an “excellent track record” of securing and retaining probationary teachers and good progress was being made in appointing enough early years officers to meet the 1,140 hours of nursery hours that will be on offer to parents from August.

A workforce plan has resulted in fewer vacant posts, HR issues and complaints, as well as a better reputation for the council service.

But there’s a lack of teachers for subjects in high demand, such as English, maths, home economics, CDT, drama, computing, music and chemistry, while subjects in low demand include PE, art and design, and the social subjects.

Ms McLean told councillors: “While our intention has been to maintain the pupil/teacher ratio within Fife, increasing the overall number of teachers employed, this is dependent upon our ability to recruit.

"The shortage of teachers nationally continues to have a significant impact on our ability to recruit. In addition, we do not have the level of contingency that we would normally seek to ensure that we can always fill gaps in the classroom rotas caused by sickness, training courses and other absences.”

She said they were “continuing to explore all new and alternative routes into teaching”, including advertising on social media and recruiting in Northern Ireland.

The number of posts filled in the 2019-20 school year, including transfers, probationers, temporary and permanent appointments, was 397 in primary schools and 200 for secondary schools. There was one primary post and 33 secondary posts vacant as of June last year with more vacancies identified at the start of August.

From that time, schools managed their own recruitment and selection processes.