Created on: 11 Dec 2025 | Last modified: 12 Dec 2025
The Scottish Government has just published figures that show that Scotland has 63 more teachers in 2024 than 2023, but 810 fewer teachers than in 2021.
The Scottish Government had promised 3,500 extra teachers in addition to the 2021 number – the Scottish Government is therefore 4,310 teachers short of that promise.
Imagine how teachers’ workload would have been reduced with an extra 4,310 teachers. In recent years, the Scottish Government did facilitate the training of extra teachers to fill these planned posts but sadly, many of those teachers are now languishing on precarious contracts.
The Scottish Government’s 2021 Manifesto pledge to reduce teachers' class contact time, supported by the recruitment of additional teachers, was a clear recognition of the need to tackle excessive teacher workload in our schools.
The failure of government and local authorities to recruit additional teachers and the failure to deliver any meaningful progress on the commitment to reduce teachers' class contact time, has led to the current workload dispute and statutory (postal) ballot.
The Scottish Government’s ASN numbers, in its latest published figures, confirm that challenges arising from the under-resourcing of ASN provision continue to increase.
The December 2025 published figures show that the percentage of pupils with ASN is now 43%. The overall number of pupils with ASN has increased from 36,544 in 2007 to 299,445 in 2025; i.e. from 5.3% to 43% of the school population. This represents a percentage increase in the number of pupils with ASN of over 710% between 2007 and 2025. This has contributed hugely to the unsustainability of teacher workload.
The EIS will soon publish an ASN Briefing based on the results of our 2025 National Member Survey, and a review of the Scottish Government’s published December 2025 (Summary) and March 2024 (Supplementary) teacher and pupil figures.
Our ASN Briefing shows that whilst the percentage of pupils with ASN rose exponentially, between 2010 and 2024, the number of ASN teachers in Scotland fell from 3,524 to 2,837. This is a drop of 19.5% - a fifth of the ASN teachers that Scotland once had have disappeared from the system in the last decade and a half.
Many pupils with ASN require specialist professional support, as they often have complex and interconnected additional needs.
The increased number of pupils with ASN has not been met with increased amounts of professional support, which has led to many teachers reporting that there is no meaningful support for many of the pupils that they teach who have ASN.
Our survey found: Less than 1% of members surveyed said they had sufficient time “all the time” within a typical working week to carry out the tasks needed to support pupils with Additional Support Needs. A member quoted in our briefing stated:
“The additional meetings, paperwork, parental liaison and planning for children with additional support needs and challenging behaviour is all consuming.”
Our ASN Briefing reported that teachers were asked in our National Survey if the under-resourcing of additional support needs under the presumption of mainstreaming has an impact on teachers. Over 99% of members responded ‘Yes’, with a further 94% stating that it increases teacher workload.
Our briefing shows that teachers’ workload simply does not allow them sufficient time to tailor teaching for large numbers of pupils with ASN. When our survey asked - Beyond teaching, preparation and correction what are the biggest drivers of your workload? ASN was the single largest theme identified.
A members’ comment quoted in our ASN Briefing: “Personalising resources for pupils with additional support needs as well as teaching and directing PSAs who are working directly with individuals to upskill them drives a lot of my workload.”
Unmet ASN can lead to ASN-related pupil behaviour issues that then affect all pupils and need to be followed up during and after classes. The time then taken to deal with violent and aggressive incidents takes away teaching time and time outside of teaching time that could be spent on ‘preparation and correction’.
We are campaigning to improve ASN support for teachers and provision for pupils as a separate part of our Stand up for Quality Education campaign.
Fundamental reform and long-term additional resources are needed to address ASN challenges – issues that go beyond this statutory ballot on workload. Please see the Joint Statement on ASN that the EIS facilitated amongst a group of stakeholders:
However, the EIS is clear that reducing weekly class contact time from a maximum of 22.5 hours a week to 21 hours a week, with a corresponding increase in preparation & correction time will reduce workload.
This will provide more time to prepare lessons, mean less time teaching, and more time outwith lessons to build the support for all pupils, including those with ASN. More teachers in schools will provide extra capacity to help too.
Less weekly class contact and more ‘preparation & correction’ time are not going to totally solve ASN-related workload for teachers, but they will help. The Scottish Government, almost five years after its manifesto promise shows little sign of moving forward- EIS members standing together will be the catalyst for progress.
Our statutory ballot is the best chance to get a meaningful reduction in workload for all teachers.