Matt Smith, Unison’s Scottish secretary, spoke at a conference in Edinburgh on the role played by education support staff, such as classroom assistants, catering staff and librarians.
The trade union chief used his speech to stress the importance of education, telling the audience this was “one of the key supports for economic infrastructure”.
Mr Smith said: “When big business accuses public service of being a drain on the economy, they conveniently forget the role of public education in providing them with an educated workforce.
“This is just one of the reasons why public service investment must be kept high. To cut spending on education and other public services at this crucial time could condemn the Scottish economy to further recession.”
And he stressed the role other staff play, arguing they should be “valued and consulted in the development of Scotland’s education”.
Mr Smith said: “Too often, politicians and the media focus on teachers and lecturers, and ignore the rest of the education team. From classroom assistants to school meals staff, and from early years workers to librarians, they ensure our kids get a high standard of education.
“However, as in other parts of the public sector, support staff in education tend to be the lowest paid and least valued, and it is no coincidence that many of them are women.
“Politicians must become aware that support staff are no longer prepared to play a secondary role. They need to be valued and consulted in the development of Scotland’s education.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article