Created on: 25 Nov 2025
Voting in the EIS statutory postal ballot on workload continues despite last week’s media announcements by the Scottish Government.
As signalled through various EIS communications, the Scottish Government deliberately circumvented the long-established and constitutionally agreed SNCT negotiation channels with the publication of their “proposals” on Thursday 20th November.
This led to a public rebuke being issued by the Teachers’ Panel of the SNCT.
The EIS Salaries Committee will consider at its next meeting, what looks to be a flimsy, unsubstantial medley of proposals that do not go far enough or fast enough in addressing workload.
Most critically, the proposals do not satisfy what the SNP pledged in its manifesto and seem to be designed to divert attention away from the government and local authorities’ non-delivery of what was promised.
The SNP Manifesto promised to:
“Invest a further £1 billion over the next parliament to close the school attainment gap and recruit 3500 additional teachers and classroom assistants, allowing teachers more time out of the classroom to prepare lessons and improve their skills.”
“We will build up the resilience of our education system, giving teachers more time out of the classroom to prepare for lessons, undertake professional development and tackle the challenges of closing the attainment gap.”
None of this has come to pass.
The education section of the manifesto also stressed teacher agency, that teachers are best placed to make decisions:
“And, because teachers know the educational needs of pupils best, we will intensify our approach to empowering the teaching profession and ensuring that the decisions that affect the education of our children and young people are taken closest to them.”
The EIS supports teacher empowerment, but it cannot be an empty term. Teachers know the educational needs of pupils best, and our own professional needs.
This is why the EIS is campaigning for the entire 90-minutes per week that will be freed up from class contact reduction to be allocated to teachers’ ‘preparation and correction’, with teachers determining how the time should be used in the support of learning, teaching and assessment for young people.
If the time were to go to anything other than preparation and correction, the situation regarding teacher workload will get worse not better. That’s why this is a red line in the negotiations, with all unions on the Teachers’ Side in agreement.
All unions are also clear that the commitment must be fully funded - the 2021 manifesto promised additional spending, so there must be no cuts elsewhere or senior leaders and/or ASN teachers pulled away from other duties to cover classes while teachers have their NCCT.
We are a campaigning union. Our campaign to begin to reduce workload is not yet won and will not be won until there is a binding agreement made at the SNCT to make sure the Scottish Government keeps its word on workload.
We have “persuaded” the Scottish Government to act before- on pay, on putting more funds into ASN, and acknowledging the issues with violence and aggression in schools and starting to act, albeit not going far enough as yet.
As for workload, with still no plan for implementation from the Scottish Government and COSLA despite numerous past promises, only one thing will persuade the Scottish Government to deliver the manifesto that it was elected on – we, the teachers and our collective resolve to press for promises to be honoured.
To this end, the EIS postal ballot on workload continues.
Vote Yes and Yes in the two-question statutory postal ballot and post your ballot paper as soon as possible. Add your vote and encourage your colleagues to vote too!