Created on: 03 Sep 2025
As members will be aware, following agreement at the SNCT meeting of 20th August 2025, the SNCT Working Group on Reducing Class Contact time met last week.
At this meeting, it was made clear that the Teachers’ Side remains of the position that the full 1.5 hours must be afforded to the preparation and correction component of the teachers’ contract, without any element of management direction.
The SNCT Working Group will meet twice in the coming weeks, on 18th September and 30th September 2025, and will consider the use of the 1.5 hours resulting from a reduction in weekly class contact time to 21 hours, as a priority.
These two meetings will allow Teachers’ Side members to judge the depth of the commitment of the Scottish government and COSLA to making swift and meaningful progress towards resolving the terms of formal SNCT dispute regarding the reduction in class contact time.
EIS members have already sent a resounding message to both COSLA and the Scottish Government with the SNCT Workload Consultative Ballot result announced last week. The EIS Salaries Committee expects swift and tangible progress to be made over the coming weeks and if such progress does not materialise, there will be little option left but to move towards a statutory ballot for industrial action.
During this crucial phase of negotiation, pressure must be kept on COSLA and the Scottish Government to hold them to their commitment to making swift process. In the event that a statutory industrial action ballot is necessary, it is essential that all EIS members have up to date postal details. Please log in today to MyEIS and ensure that your postal details are up to date.
With it being clear that EIS members are ready and willing to take action, COSLA and the Scottish Government now have a short window of opportunity, after years of delay, to ensure that a palpable step forward is made in addressing the unsustainable and unfair workload endured by teachers across Scotland. This opportunity must be taken to avoid a further escalation of this dispute to a statutory ballot for industrial action.