[I] want decision makers to understand that for many teachers, finding secure employment is not simply a case of applying for a job and being unsuccessful. It can mean spending years moving between temporary contracts, fixed-term posts and supply work, repeatedly proving yourself in classrooms while still having no meaningful job security.
Teachers can work continuously within the profession, build years of valuable experience and dedicate themselves to pupils, schools and communities, yet still find themselves back at the beginning when a contract ends. Breaks in service, changes between schools or local authorities, and circumstances completely outside a teacher’s control can have significant consequences for whether their service is recognised towards permanency.
That is not a sustainable or fair system.
There have already been promises and commitments to improve teacher employment and job security in Scotland. Teachers now need to see those promises translated into meaningful change. If the same problems continue year after year, assurances alone are no longer enough. Decision makers need to examine why experienced teachers are still being trapped in cycles of temporary employment and take action to remove the barriers preventing them from securing permanent posts.
The proposed three year probationer scheme should not be presented as the solution to this problem. Extending the probationary period does nothing to address the fundamental lack of permanent opportunities available to teachers after probation. In fact, there is a real concern that it could make the situation worse by increasing the length of time teachers remain in insecure or transitional employment before they even begin competing for permanent posts.
We cannot solve a crisis of insecure employment by creating a longer route to employment.
The impact of the current system goes far beyond employment status. Living year after year without knowing whether you will have a job, an income or a school to return to after the summer takes a significant personal and professional toll. Scotland also risks losing committed and experienced teachers who eventually decide they can no longer build their lives around temporary contracts and uncertainty.
Government need to listen to teachers experiencing this first hand and examine whether current recruitment practices, continuity of service rules and permanency policies are genuinely fair, transparent and consistent across Scotland.
Teachers are not asking to be handed permanent jobs without merit. They are asking for their experience and accrued service to be properly recognised and for a fair and transparent route to permanent employment.
Promises have already been made. What teachers need now is action.
This is answer 1 of the 269 written answers that teachers let us quote anonymously in the Scottish Teacher Employment Survey 2026. It answers the survey’s last question: what do the people who make decisions about teacher employment need to know?
We have corrected spelling, added paragraph breaks and removed details that could identify anyone. Words in square brackets are ours.