Hundreds of teaching students have been unable to begin school placements because the vital vetting process was only started last week.

About 200 trainee teachers at Aberdeen University could not begin practice in schools because they need to have criminal records checks carried out.

The first of the students should have been in schools in the last few days but the agency which carries out the vetting, Disclosure Scotland, said it only received registration documents from the university last Wednesday.

All those placements have been postponed until the criminal record checks have been completed.

Student teachers must go through checks

Disclosure Scotland said it had been accepting registration since March and it had held a seminar at Aberdeen University earlier this year explaining the procedure.

Despite repeated requests the university has been unable to explain why the blunder happened.

Last week it emerged there were problems in checking the background of student teachers at Edinburgh University which resulted in 25 trainees waiting for the process to be completed.

Concern about the safety of children followed the murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells.

Background checks

The UK Government was forced into a U-turn by the delays in background checks, which left thousands of children unable to start the new term at the beginning of the month.

The rules were eased after a backlog of checks built up at the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).

North of the border it is Disclosure Scotland which checks people through the Scottish Criminal Record Office.

All new Scottish teachers went through background checks earlier than usual in February, before Disclosure Scotland was set up.

However, there have been warnings that things might not go so smoothly next year unless the systems are sorted out.

Disclosure Scotland said that 90% of all applications were processed within 10 days.