Scotland will be hit by a head teacher recruitment crisis because of Scottish Government plans to make those in charge of schools achieve a high-level qualification, MSPs have been told.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced earlier this year that head teachers will be forced to take a new masters qualification to improve leadership in the country’s schools.
Teachers could start studying for the certificate from August this year and it will become mandatory by 2018/19.
Terry Lanagan, of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, told Holyrood’s Education Committee every council is already struggling to fill posts, with some primary schools not receiving a single applicant for vacancies.
He said: “If this were to be introduced there would very quickly be a crisis where schools are unable to recruit head teachers across the country.”
Earlier, MSPs were told parents do not get enough information about their children’s performance at school as the prospect of reintroducing national primary school testing was discussed.
Iain Ellis, chairman of the National Parent Forum of Scotland, said: “We get parents’ nights once a year. We get a report card which a lot of the times looks like it has been cut and pasted and you can’t tell if it’s our child it’s aimed at or someone else’s child.”
But Scotland’s largest teaching union the EIS said concerns about how data gathered using national testing in schools will be used is “causing angst” in the profession.
In August Ms Sturgeon announced the return of standardised assessments, with all pupils to be tested in P1, P4 and P7, and again in S3.