SO THE EIS and the other Scottish teachers' unions have settled for 3% when inflation is currently running at around 4%. According to the EIS negotiators, it's the best deal that can be obtained in the circumstances. So that's all right then!
But is it? Just two weeks previously a blatant bureaucratic manoeuvre was used to deny the EIS Executive Council the right to even discuss a motion to consult the union's members by ballot on the then 2.7% offer.
Why was it so important to prevent us discussing whether to put the management's offer to ballot?
New Labour supporters had leading roles on both the union and the Cosla sides in these negotiations. Could it be that their chief concern was to save the Government from any possibility of the embarrassment which a major dispute over Scottish teachers' pay would cause them?
Perhaps the delegates to the EIS AGM next week will not be so obliging to New Labour. Could their failure to reverse the Tory education cuts and this pathetic pay deal have repercussions on the Government's pet project, Higher Still?
John Dennis,
31 Glencaple Avenue, Dumfries.
May 28.
WHAT makes me proudest of being Scottish is the education I received from 1936 to 1947 at Dykehead (Shotts) Public School and Wishaw High School. Even now hardly a day passes without my realising I am constantly drawing on the traditional disciplined teaching I received in those days.
Hopefully in the years ahead Scottish education will again enjoy the esteem it held in the past.
Jean (Rodger) Currie,
22 Sandyloan Crescent,
Laurieston, Falkirk,
May 26.
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