EDUCATION students and newly qualified teachers should be fast tracked into the classroom to help in Scotland’s schools from August, according to a leading public health expert.

Professor Linda Bauld from Edinburgh University cautioned against relying on older retired teachers returning to the classroom.

She said risk assessments should be carried out on any retirees re-entering the work place.

In addition, she emphasised that in terms of public health the Scottish Government should also consider the recruitment of student teachers close to finishing their studies.

“If they are recruiting older people they need to do a risk assessment on those individuals,” said Bauld, who is a behaviour scientist based at the university’s medical school.

“Any professional who is returning to work would need to have an occupational health assessment in terms of a record of their health history ... and declare any conditions which they have."

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She added: “From a public health perspective the risk is clearly far less for younger adults than for older adults absolutely. But on the other hand they don’t have the experience the retirees do. So the question is which one do you prioritise?

“I think they should try and do both. I think it would be wise in terms of assessing risk if there are newly qualified or close to qualification students to offer them the opportunity to be brought in to the education system early, but in addition they should do a risk assessment on some teachers, particularly very newly retired teachers. That seems not unreasonable to do that as well.”

Bauld said that it was not the case that anyone over the age of 60 was significantly more at risk from the coronavirus than younger people, and there was debate about whether over-70s should be in the shielded category.

She went on to say that some parents were concerned about sending their children back to school because they could be putting teachers at risk.

At the daily briefing yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon said parents would not face penalties if their children did not return to school.

The General Teaching Council of Scotland (GTCS) is to contact more than 15,000 teachers on its register asking them to rejoin the profession as schools adapt classrooms to cope with social distancing guidelines for pupils and teachers to stay two metres apart from one another.

The restriction may mean that class sizes are reduced from 30 to 15 or fewer and that pupils may in some areas attend school for two days a week, completing work set for them at home over the rest of the time.

Guidance issued by the Scottish Government to schools and local authorities warns the new model of teaching “may lead to requirements for workforce flexibility and increased staffing”.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “As set out in the framework published on May 21, we are already committed to supplementing the existing workforce where required. Any staff recruited would, of course, be subject to appropriate checks.”

Concerns have been raised over councils’ ability to attract enough teachers back into the profession for the blended learning model to be effective. Before the Covid-19 outbreak, there were 88 vacancies in Scotland’s primary and pre-schools and 294 shortages in secondary schools, according to the latest statistics.

Teachers started to return to school from this week to draw up plans for August.