McCrone blow to mature entrants.

David Henderson
12/10/2001

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 TESS.