Talking-up Scotland

Under the headline:

‘Thousands of experienced teachers quit Scots schools’

we read some ‘selective’ and some fake figures ‘collated by the Tories’ to desperately construct a wee crisis.

Here are the claims and the rebuttals:

Tory Claim 1: ‘Between 2004 and 2018 the number of teachers fell by almost 4,000.’

Here are the most recent official published statistics:

https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/HistoricDatasets/PupilTeacherHistoric

So, 49 739 teachers and 723 554 pupils in 2004 gives a ratio of 1:14.5. 49 463 teachers and 688 959 pupils in 2017 gives a slightly improved ratio of 1:13.9.

There are 276 fewer teachers but 34 595 fewer pupils for them to teach!

Tory Claim 2: ‘Schools are missing a “lost generation” of teachers who have turned their backs on the profession, it has been claimed. The Scottish Conservatives said teachers between the ages of 43 and 60 were leaving in droves, taking their significant experience with them. But despite increases in most of the other age groups, the 43 to 60-year-old age range had decreased by 12,896 over the same period.’

Here’s how I react to the above and to this below:

‘The number of 20 to 30-year-old teachers have increased by more than 3,000. Teachers aged from 30 to 40 have risen in number by 4,848 since 2004.’

And the problem is?

First, we’re talking about an average of less than 1 000 out of a total teacher population of 50 000 older class teachers leaving, between 43 to 60 years of age, each year.

Second, we’re not told what proportion of this group is in the 55 to 60 age range when many have pension entitlements already approaching the maximum and when many are justifiably tired.

Third, how many 43 to 50-year-olds are leaving? That might be more interesting unless of course the number is too small for the required Tory headline.

Fourth, in my experience, young teachers often learn enough to be more than capable by their mid-twenties and are already in any meaningful sense, ‘experienced.’

Overall, then, this Tory/Scotsman collaboration is pure bunkum.

 

Though far from eye-catching, the headline above is not that bad, though more speech marks would make it more accurate and informative:

‘Some’ schools ‘unable to find’ ‘some’ staff they ‘need?’

Based on, no surprise, the combined work of the Lib Dems Broadcasting Liaison Office and BBC research officers, McIvor offers us this kind of thing:

• Some Scottish schools have had to advertise multiple times in order to fill teaching posts, according to figures obtained by the Scottish Liberal Democrats.
• Freedom of information requests submitted to all of Scotland’s 32 local authorities found one post had been advertised as many as 14 times.
• The responses also showed some open posts had had no applications.
• On the other side of the country, a vacant primary school teaching post in East Ayrshire was advertised nine times.

All very interesting in a gossipy sort of way but we don’t get any statistics to help us judge the scale and severity of the problem. Could that be because the statistics are not very worrying?

McIvor then goes on to wonder, sorry analyse, if high house prices in some areas might be affecting recruitment. Brilliant! What an insight.

Of course, in return for all their help, the Lib Dems get some free space to have a wee tirade, make the voters anxious and, as we know they do in such circumstances, blame the SNP government for something they’ve constructed as a crisis.

Some useful statistics, for his report, were easily available to McIvor, on the BBC Scotland website though the headline would have had to change:

‘Scottish teacher training numbers increase, and staff vacancies fall sharply’

About 85% of the places available in secondary teacher training this year were taken up compared with 70% in 2017

The number of people in teacher training in Scotland has gone up for the third year running, according to new figures.

There are nearly 4,000 new student teachers in Scotland this year.

The latest Scottish government figures show the number of posts in secondary schools advertised for more than three months fell from 229 last year to 148 this year.

The number of pre-school and primary vacancies advertised for three months dropped from 136 to 49

The number of pre-school and primary vacancies advertised for more than three months also dropped – from 136 last year to 49 this year. Again, the figure was still higher than the 33 recorded in 2016.

The Scottish government statistics also show:

• Student teacher intake increased for three years in a row, reaching 3,902 in 2018 compared to 3,376 in 2015-16
• Growth in teacher numbers across all STEM subjects (Science, Technical, Engineering and Mathematics)
• Student primary teacher intake rose to 2,082 and exceeded targets for 2018
• 1,494 student teachers will start at secondary level, up from 1,226 in 2017

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-46501068

OK, Jamie, back to the start and get some facts before you make another mess.

 

The Scottish Conservatives Branch’s, Temporary Press Liaison Officer, Murdo Fraser has alerted the Scotsman to a serious problem of imminent tax-flight by Scotland’s better paid individuals:

‘While many people will not have much sympathy for the decrease in higher incomes, further tax increases could push this income bracket to leave and deny Scotland any tax take. However, the SNP tax hikes will also charge middle earners more compared to the rest of the UK, which, after such small wage growth, seems punitive.’

Fraser seems to have been unable to include factors such as free student tuition, care for the elderly or free prescriptions into his overall assessment of the tax burden in Scotland.

The Scotsman has, unusually, failed to undertake any proper background research to establish the basis or lack of basis for Fraser’s claim.

However, a US study of every million-dollar earner, reported in the Guardian in 2017, does not support him:

‘Only about 2.4% of US-based millionaires change their state of residence in a given year. Interstate migration is actually more common among the US middle [working] class, and almost twice as common among its poorest residents, who have an annual interstate migration rate of 4.5%.’

The greater mobility among the poorer residents, reflects the lack of welfare benefits and worker protections in the US compared to those in Scotland. Even the low-level of mobility of millionaires in the US may be higher than we should expect in Scotland given the additional pull factors here of lower crime, a more efficient health service and more attractive recreational environment than is available in England.

Further evidence undermining Fraser’s notions comes from Forbes, also reported in the Guardian in 2017:

‘Analysis of this list shows most of the world’s billionaires – about 84% – still live in their country of birth. And among those who do live abroad, most moved to their current country of residence long before they became wealthy – either as children with their parents, or as students going abroad to study (and then staying). The world’s billionaires largely live where they were born or where they began their careers. Only about 5% of world billionaires moved abroad after they became successful. These individuals readily fit the stereotype of a “transnational capitalist class” – unplugged from their nation state, travelling the world for some combination of tax avoidance and cosmopolitan lifestyle.’

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/20/if-you-tax-the-rich-they-wont-leave-us-data-contradicts-millionaires-threats

So, just the word of one partisan member of a party dedicated to low-taxation is all you need for a report, ‘Scotsman.?’

‘Scotland staffed to do almost twice as many food inspections as England does!’

Unably assisted by Mike Rumbles of the Scottish Lib Dems, STV reporters have turned the above good news into a confused bad news story. If you don’t think too hard, you might think 9 000 tests failed is a bad thing even if you notice that’s actually a bit less than 2 000 per year and that another 80 000 were carried out and resulted in passes.

You see, pay attention, lots of tests being carried out with 10% being caught and remedied is good news. The service is doing what it is supposed to do to protect customers and it’s doing it far better than is the case in England:

From Environmental Health News on 20^th September 2018:

‘English local authorities are seriously falling behind their devolved neighbours when it comes to resourcing food inspections. The latest LAEMS figures published this week reveals that each Environmental Health professional inspecting food establishments in England is responsible for 345 premises annually while in Wales the figure is nearly half that at 175. In Northern Ireland, the figure is 238 premises per EHP while in Scotland it is 204.’

The Head of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health said:

‘In the devolved nations, they have the opportunity to resource food safety the way they think appropriate the difference is significant and that does concern us particularly on rising number of food premises to be covered and rising numbers of premises not being inspected.’

http://www.ehn-online.com/news/article.aspx?id=16696

 

In Insider yesterday:

The number of Scots working on “toxic” zero hours contracts has fallen to 63,000, new figures revealed. Official statistics showed in the period April to June 2018 2.4% of all those in work were employed in this way – compared to 2.5% of workers in England and Wales.The data, from the Office for National Statistics, showed the number of zero hours contracts in Scotland was down by 8,000 from the same April to June 2017, and was 15,000 lower than the same period in 2016.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/fewer-scots-toxic-zero-hours-13814376

This news follows a trend reported here earlier:

Another step on the way to becoming a ‘Living Wage Nation’ and a ‘Better Nation?’

With 1 in 4 living wage employers already in Scotland, the Scottish Government aims to make this a ‘Living Wage Nation’

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

80 000 lowest paid workers in NHS England still on poverty wages as NHS Scotland follows Scottish Government policy to pay a living wage to all public-sector employees

Scottish care workers to receive Living Wage for ‘sleepover’ hours while English care workers receive only the National Minimum Wage.

 

You’ll remember, yawn, that I used to teach research methods to the bairns and supervised bigger PhD weans. See if one them came to me wanting to research racist behaviour by Scottish teachers because only one case in the last five years has been reported to the GTC and that because they’ve heard its not getting reported it must be more common, so it is, by the way, but, it’d be short thrift for them! You can’t just imagine a phenomenon because there’s ‘growing concern’ and you want it to be there so that you can conveniently prove that what you always thought was the case, is the case. That’s not research!

This is a return to the wider, subconsciously driven, attempts by some in our NoMedia to remind Scots not to get too cocky about being different on racism.

Reporting Scotland, back in September 2018, on racism in Scotland was, well, about more racism but NOT in Scotland.

We heard about a worthy EIS initiative to reduce racism in Scottish schools, but Reporting Scotland clearly felt they should be able to justify the project with evidence of a need for it. They couldn’t find any Scottish examples, so we had mention of the Manchester Arena bomb attack and some anecdotal tales from Anas Sarwar.

What we didn’t have was:

‘There were 3,349 [hate crime] charges reported [in Scotland] in 2016-17, 10 percent fewer than in 2015-16, and the lowest number reported since 2003-04.’

http://www.copfs.gov.uk/media-site-news-from-copfs/1559-hate-crime-in-scotland-2016-17-report-released

Remember these figures include graffiti, passing comments and tweets, anti-semitic (only 17), racism and attacks against the English, East Europeans, Roma, Sikhs, Catholics and presumably Protestants too.

In England and Wales, however:

 ‘Hate crimes have rocketed by almost a third in the UK in the past year, with unprecedented spikes around the EU referendum and terror attacks recorded by police. New figures released by the Home Office confirm victims’ reports of a dramatic increase in incidents motivated by attackers’ hostility towards their race, nationality, religion or other factors. Data from police forces across England and Wales showed there were almost 80,400 hate crimes recorded in the 2016/17 financial year.’

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/hate-crimes-eu-referendum-spike-brexit-terror-attacks-police-home-office-europeans-xenophobia-a8004716.html

So, is it, maybe, not being reported to the GTC because its just not happening here, enough for a big dramatic report ?

From news.gov.scot, yesterday:

‘Scottish Ministers are on course to invest over £125 million in 2018-19 to mitigate the worst impact of UK Government welfare reforms and to protect those on low incomes. Meanwhile, as at the middle of December, the new Social Security Scotland agency had spent £34 million making over 150,000 payments of Carers Allowance Supplement and Best Start Grants, with applications for the latter only opening on 10th December. UK Government welfare cuts since 2010 are expected to reduce welfare spending in Scotland by around £3.7 billion in 2020/21.’

https://news.gov.scot/news/gbp-125-million-to-combat-uk-austerity

Earlier reports here on how Scotland is fighting back against this brutal government in Westminster:

Brutal evidence of austerity in England & Wales as abortion rate soars 40% higher than in Scotland

New pregnancy and baby payments to offset Tory austerity in Scotland

Against the odds: Evidence of how SNP policies have defended Scotland against a least some of Tory austerity

Author AL Kennedy defends Scotland as more caring than ‘austerity England’

Scottish Government continues to fight brutal Westminster austerity politics

Landmark study links Tory austerity to 120,000 deaths

Scottish Government fights to protect against the effects of Tory austerity cuts.

Once more the SNP’s progressive housing policies are helping Scotland weather the storm of Tory austerity

The SNP’s response to Theresa May is to continue the fight against her heartless austerity cuts and to stand up for us

 

(c) Trip Advisor

In Insider yesterday:

An Edinburgh hotel has become the first in the UK to be battery-powered. The Gyle Premier Inn at Edinburgh Park has installed a five-tonne battery which will charge from the national grid during off-peak periods and power the 200-room site for several hours each day. The 3m3 lithium ion battery is expected to save the hotel £20,000 a year on its energy bill, and is able to power the whole venue, including the restaurant, for up to three hours at a time after a two-hour charge.’

https://www.insider.co.uk/news/gyle-premier-inn-edinburgh-park-13809891

The massive storage battery and the supporting system will enable the hotel to buy electricity when prices are low and to store that for use at peak times.

This looks like the early stages of the necessary adaption by electricity consumers, required to enable Scotland to make good use of its periods of over-production, due to excess wind power-based generation.

Premier Inns can be seen as typical ‘early adopters’ of the kind witnessed in all previous major technological changes.

The signs are already there that over-production will become increasingly common:

Scotland’s wind energy smashes through 100% threshold but fails to bother BBC Scotland

BBC Scotland have only murder on their minds as Scotland’s wind turbines produce enough power on one day to power three times more homes than we have!

 

This is a well-worn media scare story to snare the Scot Gov with

Much is currently being made by our NoMedia, fed by Labour and the Lib Dems, of 400 000 workdays lost due to mental health conditions, over three years. Missing, amongst other indicators of quality journalism, has been context – is there anything special about this apparent level of mental health problems at work? Surely, we’d need to know that if we and policy-makers, in particular, are to react appropriately to the ‘news?’

The Mental Health Foundation does not identify any particular occupation as being at increased risk but rather finds that other factors, which can be found across all professions, are more likely to lead to the onset of a mental health problem:

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics

However, when we do look at the relative prevalence of ‘common’ mental disorders in occupational groups we do not find teachers to be significantly more at risk. From a large (5 497 subjects), UK, peer-reviewed, survey in 2009, see this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3034883/

On the basis of the above, teaching professionals have only a slightly higher (15%) prevalence than the average (13%) but this is lower than for several others. Notably, the study also found lack of job security, to be a major factor, regardless of occupational role. This is of course not a common risk factor among teachers, in comparison to many other occupations.

Footnote: The absence of separate figures for women teaching professionals and the fact that men had only an average prevalence (13%) probably suggests that the prevalence among women teachers could be higher at around 17%. However, this remains only at the average for women generally.

 

 

From Reporting Scotland yesterday:

‘School staff in Scotland missed almost 400 000 workdays for mental health reasons in the last 3 years according to a Freedom of Information request by the Scottish Lib Dems.’

The Daily Telegraph picked up on the story and in so doing revealed a wee problem:

‘The Scottish Liberal Democrats disclosed official figures showing almost 400,000 days have been lost over the past three years for reasons including stress and depression. The number of days teachers have been absent with mental health issues has increased 15 per cent, from 75,281 in 2015/16 to 87,066 in 2017/18.’

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/01/03/hundreds-thousands-school-days-lost-scotland-thanks-teacher/

See it? Only ‘75,281 in 2015/16 to 87,066 in 2017/18’ with presumably something around 80 000 in the intervening year, 2016/17? This would give us a total of around only 240 000.

So, how did they, with BBC Scotland in dopey tow, get to 400 000 days lost over three years for mental health reasons?

They added in the days when teachers reported ‘depression’ rather than ‘stress’ and, of course, went for the bigger three-year total to better inform (scare?) their audience.

Note: I haven’t seen the data so must trust that they did not double count in cases where stress and depression were reported by an individual reporting absence. Can I trust the Lib Dems any more than Labour to get it right? I’m not so sure.

However, that must be around 160 00 days lost, over the three years, or 54 000 per year, due to depression, on top of the 240 000 lost over three years or 80 000 per year due to stress?

How does this look in percentage terms?

There are 51 513 teacher FTEs in Scotland. Scottish teachers are contracted to work 195 days per year so the 51 thousand do around 10 million days each year.

Only around 54 thousand days are lost to depression each year.  That means that only 0.54% of the total days worked by all teachers are lost to depression.

When we add the stress plus depression figures back together, to 134 000 per year, even this represents only 1.34% of the total.

Some crisis?

https://ssta.org.uk/35-hour-week-teacher-contract/

https://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/12/3099/348574

Finally, apparently forgotten already, BBC Scotland themselves had reported developments suggesting greater cause for optimism as recently as 10^th December 2018:

Scottish teacher training numbers increase

Nice, accurate, restrained and professional but wait, what is this?

About 85% of the places available in secondary teacher training this year were taken up compared with 70% in 2017

The number of people in teacher training in Scotland has gone up for the third year running, according to new figures.

There are nearly 4,000 new student teachers in Scotland this year.

The Scottish government also said the number of vacancies being advertised for more than three months had fallen sharply.

The latest Scottish government figures show the number of posts in secondary schools advertised for more than three months fell from 229 last year to 148 this year.

Despite the drop, that figure is still significantly higher than in 2016, when only 75 posts remained unfilled for more than three months.

The number of pre-school and primary vacancies advertised for three months dropped from 136 to 49

The number of pre-school and primary vacancies advertised for more than three months also dropped – from 136 last year to 49 this year. Again, the figure was still higher than the 33 recorded in 2016.

The Scottish government statistics also show:

• Student teacher intake increased for three years in a row, reaching 3,902 in 2018 compared to 3,376 in 2015-16
• Growth in teacher numbers across all STEM subjects (Science, Technical, Engineering and Mathematics)
• Student primary teacher intake rose to 2,082 and exceeded targets for 2018
• 1,494 student teachers will start at secondary level, up from 1,226 in 2017

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-46501068