New Briefing Highlights Scale of Growing ASN Challenge in Scotland's Schools

A new briefing paper, published by Scotland’s largest teaching union, has laid bare the true scale and impact of the growing Additional Support Needs (ASN) challenge facing Scotland’s schools.

The number of young people with ASN has grown exponentially in recent years, rising from 5% of the pupil population in 2007 to 43% of the pupil population in 2025 – a growth of more than 710% over this period.

Commenting, EIS General Secretary Andrea Bradley said, "In less than two decades, we have witnessed a more than seven-fold increase in the number of young people in our schools with an identified Additional Support Need.

"This has most definitely not been matched with a similar increase in the resources available to support young people with ASN. In reality, despite the huge increase in the number of young people with ASN, we now have 20% fewer specialist ASN staff working our schools than we did in 2010."

Ms Bradley continued, "The consequences of this are profound and far-reaching. For young people, it means that far too many are not having their individual needs met adequately.

"For teachers, the results are excessive workload and increases in stress and stress-related illness as they struggle to deal with the diverse demands that are placed upon them.

"For society, it means a growing number of young people become frustrated and disengaged from education, with serious long-term consequences for all concerned."

Ms Bradley added, "The Scottish Government’s own figures, released last week, confirm the growing resource crisis in our schools. In 2021, the Scottish Government pledged to recruit an additional 3,500 teachers to help address the growing workload crisis.

"The figures show that, this year, there are actually 810 fewer teachers then there were when the pledge was made. So, adding the 810 teachers that our schools have lost to the 3,500 additional teachers that were supposed to be employed, and Scotland’s schools are a total of 4,310 teachers down on the level promised by the Scottish Government in its 2021 manifesto pledge."

Ms Bradley concluded, "It is impossible to overstate the positive impact that 4,310 additional teachers in our schools would have on issues such as teacher workload, support for pupils, and positive outcomes for Scotland’s young people.

"The failure of the Scottish Government, and its local authority partners, to deliver on the promises made to teachers and pupils in the 2021 Manifesto is what has led to the ongoing workload dispute and our statutory ballot for industrial action.

"Recruiting more teachers, tackling teacher workload, and ensuring a positive learning experience for all young people must be the priority for politicians of all parties as we head towards the Scottish Parliament elections in May next year."

Notes for editors

• The EIS ASN Briefing is 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.
• The 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.
• 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.
• Fewer 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.”
• Teachers were asked if the under-resourcing of additional support needs under the presumption of mainstreaming in Scottish education has an impact on teachers.  Over 99% of members responded ‘Yes’, with a further 94% stating that it increases teacher workload.
• Teachers’ workload simply does not allow them sufficient time to tailor teaching for large numbers of pupils with ASN.  When the EIS survey asked, ‘Beyond teaching, preparation and correction what are the biggest drivers of your workload?’, ASN was the single largest theme identified.
• 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.
• One teacher surveyed commented, “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.”