TEACHERS across Scotland look set to boycott the revised Highers amid concerns the new exams are being dumbed down and that they will provide a charter for cheats.

The country's biggest teaching union, the Educational Institute of Scotland - which represents almost 50,000 teachers - will face three separate calls to organise a boycott of the reforms at its annual conference in Dundee next week.

The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association - which represents one in three secondary teachers - is to ballot members on industrial action aimed at blocking Higher Still unless the Government meets a series of conditions.

Higher Still has already been postponed twice and plans for the English exam have been re-drafted. However, concerns remain that the programme will not be in place within the proposed timescale - by August next year - because materials are not in place and teachers are unprepared.

There are fears that the new exams will be based on a limited range of teaching materials and that they will rely too heavily on continuous assessment.

Pupils who sit end-of-unit tests will be able to place the exam paper on the Internet or sell it to pupils in neighbouring schools whose timetable is slightly behind.

Mr Bill Cairns, principal teacher of Physics at Dalziel High School in Motherwell, who drafted one of the EIS motions, said: ''The course materials being used will come from a very restricted national item bank. The questions will be known by the vast bulk of kids before they embark on tests and it will be those from middle class families, with access to the Internet, who will benefit most.''

He added: ''There is also concern about the dumbing-down effect of this whole procedure. With kids having to pass so many units before they get to sit the terminal exam, you have to make the new Higher easier.

''The only alternative would be to lower the pass mark which would be educationally unsound. It's the sort of thing employers will look at.''

Mr Drew Morris, secretary of the North Lanarkshire branch of the EIS, said: ''There's not a teacher I have encountered who is happy with the state of progress with Higher Still in terms of workload, resources and compatibility of courses at different levels.''

A consultative ballot of SSTA members revealed 93% are in favour of holding a further vote, seeking approval for a boycott. The turnout was 53%.

Scottish Education Minister Brian Wilson said: ''I have already met a delegation from the SSTA to discuss the issues which were raised in their conference motion and I think good progress was made in answering these and other concerns. I am very happy to discuss detailed implementation issues and recognise, in some areas, the flow of information is not reaching the classroom teacher.''