THE number of teachers in Scotland has soared by more than 500 in the past year, according to the latest statistics.

And most of them were recruited as a result of a decision by the Scottish Government to take money back from councils and give it to head teachers to address the attainment gap.

The latest figures, released yesterday, show there were more than 51,500 teachers working in primary, secondary and special schools, representing a hike of 543 on last year – 506 of which were paid for out of the attainment fund.

A rise in the number of pupils to 688,959 means the new recruits only slightly help the average pupil-teacher ratio, taking it from 13.7 to 13.6.

However, critics pointed out while the average P1 class now has 21 pupils, this is still higher than in 2011, when it had 20.5.

The number of infants in a class of 26 or more rose from 36,700 in 2011 to 44,300 in 2017, though only 631 P1s are now taught in classes of 26 or more – substantially less than in 2006, when there were 16,845.

While there was an overall increase in primary and secondary teachers, the number of additional special needs teachers fell slightly. The numbers are still down on where they were 10 years ago.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney said: “Education is this government’s number one priority and we are investing heavily to ensure every child in Scotland has an equal chance to realise their full potential.

“This investment is improving education. We have more teachers in Scottish classrooms, better quality school buildings and the vast majority of children in S3 achieving the minimum attainment level expected of them or better.

“And we can now see that our decision to give head teachers more money and more power to decide for themselves how to close the attainment gap is paying off.”

He added: “Hundreds of additional teachers are now in Scottish classrooms, benefitting pupils the length and breadth of Scotland, as a result of that decision.

“That’s good news for teachers, parents and pupils. I recognise the scale of the challenge involved in closing the poverty-related attainment gap.

“That is why we are doubling free early learning and childcare to give every child the best start in life and reforming education, backed by £750 million over the course of this parliament through the Attainment Scotland Fund.”

However, other figures released yesterday showed a widening gap between the performance of pupils from affluent areas and pupils from deprived parts of the country.

Official figures show that in reading, writing, listening and talking and numeracy a higher proportion of those living in the wealthiest areas of Scotland achieve the expected Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) level compared to pupils from the poorest parts.

The 2016/17 Achievement of CfE Levels Return, which is based on teachers’ judgement, shows the gap between the most and least deprived in P1 is 17 points for reading, which rises to 20 points by P7.

For writing, the gap in those achieving the expected level widens from 18 points to 22 between P1 and P7; in listening and talking it grows from 12 points to 17; and for numeracy it widens from 14 points to 20.

Ross Greer, the Scottish Greens’ education spokesman, said: “An increase in teacher numbers, however small, is welcome but it’s also very clear from these statistics that schools have only been able to reverse a fraction of the cuts of the last decade and they’ve had to use their attainment funding to do it.

“This funding is for targeted interventions to reduce the attainment gap, not to firefight the worst damage from 10 years of budget cuts.

“If they’re serious about actually addressing this problem they would use Thursday’s budget to begin reversing council budget cuts as the Greens have called for and drop their unwanted, unnecessary governance reforms, which will do nothing to solve the huge challenges Scottish education faces as a result of austerity.”

Scottish Labour’s Iain Gray said: “It was Labour who led the debate on targeted spending to close the attainment gap, but the SNP approach has been to introduce it while slashing core education budgets, forcing schools to use what is supposed to be additional money to plug gaps in provision.”

He added: “The attainment gap increases in every curriculum area throughout primary school. The Scottish Attainment Fund being used to employ teachers would be fine if it was not alongside a 4000 fall in core teaching staff.

“The widening attainment gap in our primary schools highlights the real problem in our education system – schools aren’t getting enough core funding”.