Scotland is a country that prides itself on its engineering and scientific pioneers and their discoveries, which have so often put our wee Scotland at the pinnacle of global scientific research. What does that pride say about us, why is it something we shout about? Because it speaks to who we are, or at least who we want to be as a nation; industrious, intelligent, innovative. But I think it’s about more than that.
I think part of the pride is because of what it says about our attitudes to education. There is still a ‘lad (and lass) o’ pairts’ legacy, where everyone has access to a good education, a key first step in creating a meritorious society. Of course there is an element of mythologising about this, but the point is, it was myth that was based, to some extent on that principle of education being open for all, and being the route to creating a better society.
At the Institute of Physics, our job is to promote and help improve the teaching of physics, and so I take no pleasure from what we have just published in our 3Rs report, the retention, recruitment and retraining of physics teachers for Scotland’s future. It causes me enormous worry that our recruitment of physics teachers, and teachers more generally across the STEM subjects, has fallen so dramatically. It also worries me that there has been a rapid decline in physics teacher numbers in recent years. This runs counter to everything that underpins our national education ideals.
The number of registered physics teachers in Scotland has fallen by almost 15% since 2008, while just 28 trainee physics teachers were recruited in 2025 against a target of 131. At the same time, around one-third of the current workforce is approaching retirement age.
Teacher retention is also a concern, but preventing experienced physics teachers from leaving the profession early is also the easiest and most cost-effective way to start to address the shortage of teachers. In 2024, along with Mark Whalley, a former IOP colleague, I conducted research into why Scottish physics teachers had left the profession. Factors such as a lack of career progression routes, lack of flexible working, and poor support from school leadership regarding pupil indiscipline may be factors that apply to all teachers. But if physics graduates can gain more rewarding, and better paid employment outside of teaching, these factors may influence them to an even greater extent than other teachers.
The retraining of existing teachers to teach physics is a route currently not common in Scotland. This will require some funding and the development of courses to support teachers to meet the GTCS criteria for registration in Physics with Science and to develop the pedagogical content knowledge to teach physics, including its practical elements. Developing such provision would also be a relatively quick and cost-effective method of addressing physics teacher shortages, and have the added benefit of providing schools with greater staffing flexibility.
STEM subjects represent half of teaching vacancies in secondary schools, with areas outside the central belt particularly impacted. Areas with higher levels of socioeconomic deprivation face greater impact, too, with steeper declines and lower physics teacher-to-pupil ratios. Six Scottish schools have no physics teacher, while a further 18 have less than one full-time equivalent physics teacher. Access to specialist teaching should never depend on a pupil’s postcode, yet that is becoming increasingly the case. We risk creating a cohort of Scottish pupils whose education options, and therefore whose life options, are being narrowed due to the lack of teachers.
Physics teachers, some of whom are probationary teachers at the outset of their career, are often working as sole practitioners in their faculties. Beyond this, schools and local authorities have used strategies such as out-of-field teaching, reduction in certificate classes, online teaching and ‘consortium’ arrangements where pupils travel to other schools. Most significantly, more than 65% of senior physics classes are now taught with at least two different certificate courses simultaneously. Such multi-course teaching delivers poor outcomes for pupils and teachers.
Physics teachers don’t just teach a subject; they open pupils’ eyes to the wonders of the world and possibilities of the future. They are unlocking the potential of the next generation of Scottish science innovators. We are narrowing our young people’s opportunities, by allowing such stress to build up in the system that it inevitably creaks and cracks. Having enough teachers to teach the pupils is the most fundamental aspect of any education system, more so than school buildings, education strategies or curriculum reform. To see this data laid bare so starkly, quite how much our system is failing on this, is a huge concern.
But as much as learning for learning’s sake, that Scots ideal of self-improvement, is a worthy goal in its own right, I understand that it is not necessarily the priority for a Scottish Government under severe financial constraint; but the economy is by undermining our future skills pipeline, we are threatening our economic prosperity. The Scottish Government has identified the industries it thinks will be the cornerstones of the Scottish economy now and into the future. Of them, engineering, medicine, technology, manufacturing, are all underpinned by physics and the wider STEM subjects. By not having enough teachers moving into initial teacher education now, we are creating skills shortages for the future, and that is a well-known hindrance to thriving industrial sectors.
Due to the seriousness of this situation, the Institute of Physics is calling for a ten-year strategy built around the three Rs; recruitment, retention and retraining, of physics teachers. Scotland’s young people deserve access to excellent physics education wherever they live. Meeting that aspiration will require action from government, local authorities, teacher education providers, and the wider education sector.
The alternative is a system in which access to specialist physics education becomes increasingly uneven, limiting opportunities for pupils, and weakening Scotland’s future skills pipeline.
This challenge is significant, but it is not inevitable nor is it insurmountable. The evidence shows what must be done, the question now is whether we have the urgency and determination to act?
Stuart Farmer is the Education and Workforce Manager at the Institute of Physics Scotland