The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), the country's
largest teaching union, has today (Friday) written to First
Minister and Finance Secretary , calling on the Scottish
Government to deliver its promises to Scotland's learners and
teaching professionals in the Scottish Budget statement on 4
December. In the letter, the EIS highlights manifesto commitments
made by the Scottish Government on the recruitment of additional
teachers and the reduction of teachers' maximum class-contact
time – both of which have yet to be delivered by the Scottish
Government.
The EIS is also calling on its members, who comprise the vast
majority of Scotland's teachers and lecturers, to write to their
own MSPs to encourage them to lobby for more funding for
Education to enable the delivery of Scottish Government
commitments to schools, students and teaching professionals.
In the letter (copy attached), EIS General Secretary Andrea
Bradley says, “I write on behalf of the EIS and its 65000 members
ahead of the Draft Budget to urge you to honour your 2021
Manifesto promises in respect of the employment of an additional
3500 teachers and the reduction of teacher class contact time to
a maximum of 21 hours per week.”
“These promises were made to the Scottish electorate, tens of
thousands of whom are EIS members, and hundreds of thousands of
whom are parents of the children and young people that our
members teach, care for and nurture in our schools, amidst
increasingly difficult conditions and significant resource
constriction and constraint.”
“Teacher numbers have fallen in Scotland over the past two years,
this posing a real threat to the quality of education provision
in Scotland, and in a growing number of instances, to the
safeguarding of health and safety in our schools. Very
concerningly, violence and aggression by young people is on the
rise and the health and safety of our members, predominantly
women, is increasingly being put at risk due to insufficient
staffing levels.”
“Teachers work, on average, more than 11 hours per week extra
unpaid because their hours of class contact and the class sizes
they teach are amongst the highest in the OECD, and there are
simply not enough teachers employed within the system to do all
of the work that requires to be done; at the same time, though,
thousands of teachers in Scotland experience precarity of
employment, unable to obtain job security, sometimes for years on
end.”
“The 2025-26 Draft Scottish Budget is realistically the last
opportunity for the Scottish Government, via the Scottish
Parliament, to allocate sufficient funds to facilitate the
recruitment of the promised number of teachers this parliamentary
term, also essential to deliver the promised tangible reduction
in teacher workload through class contact reduction.”
“The EIS and its members call upon you to use some of the
£5billion of additional funding recently allocated to the
Scottish Parliament by the UK Government, and/or to increase tax
on wealth and property as necessary, in order to deliver on the
important Manifesto promises made to the Scottish electorate - to
invest in quality education for our young people and in the
teaching profession, by increasing teacher numbers and reducing
class contact time to a 21-hour maximum.”
