Hundreds of teachers and lecturers from across Scotland have gathered at the Caird Hall in Dundee this week for the Annual General Meeting of Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS. Over the three days of the AGM, delegates will discuss the key issues facing Scottish education – at a time when our schools, colleges and universities do not have their challenges to seek.
The sad truth is that Scottish education is facing a crisis. Years of underfunding of the sector have left our education establishments struggling to cope, with reduced budgets, scarcity of resources, cuts to staff numbers and at least one Council threatening to cut pupils’ learning hours. These pressures are having a severe detrimental impact on the educational experience of pupils and students, and will have serious and long-lasting consequences for their life chances.
At last year’s AGM, the EIS launched the Stand Up for Quality Education campaign, which aims to address some of the key challenges brought about by under-investment in education: the under-resourcing of Additional Support Needs provision; the rising tide of violent and abusive behaviour in schools; the severe and growing workload burden placed on Scotland’s teachers. These themes will run throughout this year’s conference, providing teaching professionals with the opportunity to have their say on the challenges they face in their everyday working lives.
Although Scottish education is a devolved issue, the launch of the UK General Election is clearly having an impact on debate around all public services, including Education. The Cabinet Secretary for Education, Jenny Gilruth, was scheduled to speak at this year’s AGM and to engage in a Q&A session with teachers, but this was cancelled with the Scottish Government citing the UK General Election processes as the reason for the late cancellation. This is unfortunate, as the AGM provides a very rare opportunity for classroom teachers to ask questions and seek answers directly from the Cabinet Secretary.
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The EIS is launching its own Manifesto today ahead of the election, highlighting the key priorities for Scottish education, its learners and its teachers. We will be challenging all of Scotland’s political parties and MP candidates to nail their colours to the mast and highlight their commitment to properly funding public services, while also highlighting the views of Scotland’s teaching professionals on all of the main issues.
In our Further Education colleges, lecturers are in the midst of a long-running dispute over pay which has led to a prolonged programme of industrial action, including strike action. This is not a dispute over pay for this year or even last year, but for a pay settlement that was due to be paid to lecturers in in 2022, almost two years ago. In the midst of the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, when soaring inflation has taken a massive toll on the value of pay, Scotland’s college lecturers are still being paid at 2021 levels. This is a disgrace, which should shame Scotland’s college employers and a Scottish Government that has abdicated all responsibility over this area of the public sector, giving free reign for employers to engage in the type of aggressive, anti-trade union action that would have embarrassed a Victorian workhouse owner.
Pay is an issue in the school sector too. Teachers are due to receive a pay settlement for the year at the start of August. Our pay claim was submitted to local authority employers back in January. It took five months for the employers to come back with an opening offer – five months to respond to a pay claim that they knew was coming in January, and for which they had planned in their budgets. The offer which eventually came after 134 days of waiting – very coincidentally just 2 days before the EIS AGM was set to take place – was below inflation, offered nothing by way of pay restoration and was wholly unacceptable to Scotland’s teachers. The offer, which we had waited 5 months to receive, was rejected by teaching unions in just 24 hours.
We do not want to be compelled to return to dispute and the type of industrial action that proved necessary to achieve the last teachers’ pay deal, but the lack of urgency shown from employers so far does not fill us with hope. Dragging out the negotiation process endlessly – a long standing tactic from local authority body COSLA – disrespects Scotland’s teaching profession and increases the likelihood of a trade dispute.
Over the three days of the AGM, Scotland’s teachers and lecturers will make their voices heard. In speaking up for themselves as teaching professionals, they will also be speaking up for Scottish education, and the pupils and students who deserve the best possible educational experience.
Scotland’s politicians, at both local and national level, must listen and commit to delivering a better deal for Scottish education. Investment in education is investment in our young people and in the future of our country – it is time for the Scottish Government and Scotland’s local authorities to join the EIS and Scotland’s teachers in Standing Up for Quality Education.
Andrea Bradley is General Secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland.
Coverage of the EIS AGM on social media #EISAGM24 or via:
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