Earlier this year Glasgow City Council announced its decision to remove qualified teachers from all nursery schools, a move which is expected to save 370,000. Fears have now arisen that Edinburgh City Council may introduce similar cost-cutting measures.
The Scottish National Party claims that the council plans to save Pounds 150,000 over four years by cutting the number of nursery teachers and using less qualified staff to deliver the curriculum.
But a council spokesperson said, 'We have no plans to reduce the number of nursery teachers across the city. And we do not plan to take nursery school teachers out of early years settings.'
Writing in The Scotsman (1 June), Ewan Aitken, education leader for Edinburgh Council, said that getting rid of nursery teachers would be 'madness'. 'There will always be teacher input wherever there are pre-school education services. We envisage teachers being part of an integrated team delivering the Curriculum for Excellence for early years.'
But Moira Small, a retired nursery school teacher, said that this was 'very worrying'. 'The council is keen to replace nursery schools with integrated early years centres, which are cheaper to run and provide a range of services for families who need them. They are trying to get nursery staff, who do not hold degrees or who have no experience in management, to run the schools. They then want teacher input for a few hours a day. But this is not good for continuity of the curriculum.'
Ronnie Smith, general secretary of the teachers' union Educational Institute of Scotland, said, 'We have yet to see specific details of what is being proposed in Edinburgh, but the EIS remains firm in the belief that nursery teachers should be retained in all nursery schools and nursery classes.'
