Students at Northern
College in Aberdeen have reacted with dismay to news that mature
entrants to teaching stand to lose up to £10,000 next August when
they take up their guaranteed one-year training posts in schools.
Changes to national pay scales and the introduction of training
contracts have removed traditional entry points, leaving many mature
students substantially worse off in their first year of teaching.
All probationers next session will start on the basic salary of
£16,743 after entrants’ age was no longer considered relevant.
Pauline Ward, a 43-year-old mathematics student from Inverness,
who travels daily to the college, said many of 80 postgraduate
students who attended a meeting were “distressed”. They were under
the impression, even up to last week, that their age would count for
additional scale points and give them significantly higher starting
salaries.
Mrs Ward said: “This has to affect recruitment. Students came on
to courses this year on the understanding that they would go on to a
scale that reflected their age. We are only now being told this is
not the case. There are folk who will have to give up jobs in
teaching because of this. I could just about cope with it but there
are others who could not.”
She fears mature students could quit courses if the agreement
fixed by unions and employers in the Scottish Negotiating Committee
for Teachers is not phased in. To read this story in full see
this week’s
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