John Swinney

Bursaries of £20,000 will be available from next year for people wishing to change career and become a teacher in priority science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM) subjects.

This new bursary is the latest in a series of measures the Scottish Government is taking to recruit more teachers and in developing Scotland’s STEM capacity.

School subjects which will be eligible for the bursaries are maths, computing science, physics and technical education but these will be reviewed each year according to need.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney, said: “We have founded our education reforms on faith in our teachers, but in schools in some parts of our country and in some subjects we know we have a shortage of teachers.

“We have taken a range of actions to help councils tackle that problem and now I want to go further.

“STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and maths – are crucial, not just to the education of our children but the future of our economy.

“We need to recruit more teachers in these subjects, and to do that, we need to reach beyond recent graduates and attract people who have the appropriate subject degree but are working in business or industry.”

Website | + posts

Experienced news, business, arts, sport and travel journalist. Food critic and managing editor of a well-established food and travel website. Also a magazine editor of publications with circulations of up to 200,000 and managing director of a long-established PR/marketing company with a string of blue-chip clients in its CV. Former communications lecturer at a Scottish university and social media specialist for a string of successful and busy SMEs.