INVERCLYDE schools are facing a teacher shortage – with several vacancies still to be filled.

Education chiefs have been scrambling to meet the requirement for pupil-teacher ratios imposed by the Scottish Government – or face the prospect of 
a financial penalty.

In a report to councillors, the education director has warned that certain subjects like home economics and physics remain difficult to fill.

On top of that the local authority has been allocated only 37 probationers for 2016/17 – 16 less than they had hoped for – and seven have withdrawn so far.

At the start of the new term supply teachers were used to plug the gap.

A council report said: “Every effort has been made to speed up the advertising and interviewing process for vacant posts. 

“Despite this, we are starting the academic year with some vacant posts which are being filled on a supply basis.

“In our secondary schools subjects that have been historically difficult to fill, for example home economics and physics, have remained so with a severe lack of home economics teachers across the whole council.”

For the academic year 2016/17 Inverclyde was allocated a total of 20 non-denominational and 10 denominational primary and seven secondary probationers.

Education bosses hope to use a spread of teachers across the primary schools to cover supply and absences but a shortage of supply teachers in recent years has also compounded the staffing problems.

The Scottish Government insists that Inverclyde must maintain a ratio of 13.5 pupils to one teacher.

This means that the local authority  has to employ 734 teachers to cover the 9,928 pupils in Inverclyde.