asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list by local authority areas the number of vacancies for primary and secondary school teachers in Scotland.
At the beginning of the present school session education authorities had vacancies for primary and secondary school teachers as follows:
| Primary | Secondary | |
| Borders | 2 | 14 |
| Central | — | 34 |
| Dumfries and Galloway | — | 23 |
| Fife | — | 24 |
| Grampian | 24* | 45 |
| Highland | 4 | 21 |
| Lothian | 1 | 71 |
| Strathclyde | — | 133 |
| Tayside | — | 36 |
| Orkney | — | 2 |
| Shetland | 1 | 9 |
| Western Isles | — | 7 |
| 32 | 419 | |
| * All subsequently filled. | ||
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many teaching staff, full and part-time, including rectors and head teachers, were employed in primary and secondary schools in Scotland at the end of June 1979; and what are the figures for the same date in each of the past five years.
Information about teacher numbers in education authority primary and secondary schools is collected annually as part of the September school census. Information from the 1979 census is not yet available. The numbers employed—expressed in full-time equivalent terms and including promoted staff—at September in each of the preceding five years were as follows:
| Primary | Secondary | |
| 1974 | 26,830 | 25,090 |
| 1975 | 27,750 | 26,360 |
| 1976 | 27,320 | 27,430 |
| 1977 | 26,550 | 27,630 |
| 1978 | 26,630 | 28,200 |