A headteacher of a busy primary school put it this way: “How am I meant to find time to do all that the government wants? And now they want me to take on extra powers - powers that mean responsibilities are to be put in law. Does that mean that a stroppy parent could sue? Above all, that means my job changes. Under local government employment conditions, I should have my job regraded.”

Quite. This headteacher is not alone. In fact, she is in the majority. The recent education governance proposals are a clear change to the terms and conditions for heads and promoted management teams in schools. The reality is that they affect all teachers in some way.

That is why Scotland needs a sensible tripartite review of the profession’s terms and conditions. Local government, unions and central government - as they hold the cheque book - should and must be involved.

Too many teachers feel under-appreciated and overworked. As the academic year kicked off, hundreds of teaching positions were unfilled. Bath Spa University research for the EIS teaching union warned last month that as many as 40 per cent of teachers are contemplating leaving their post. If even a fraction of that did so, it would constitute an exodus.

Teaching is an extremely fulfilling and rewarding career. However, the factors that detract from this experience are clearly weighing heavily upon professionals.

In the first Scottish Parliament, we faced a similar tipping point. At the turn of the millennium, with power over education newly devolved to Holyrood, the government at the time, with my colleague Nicol Stephen as an education minister, planned for the long term. They commissioned the McCrone Committee to make sure children had high-quality teachers, and that teaching was an appealing profession that could attract and retain talent.

This committee brought together all of the stakeholders: teachers’ organisations, employers and central government. It demanded openness. It demanded a willingness to listen and to try to understand other points of view, along with a determination to create a package of conditions and pay on which to build a confident and highly regarded profession.

The report delivered by Professor Gavin McCrone, A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century, and the consequent tripartite agreement of 2001, revolutionised the profession in Scotland. Now, Professor McCrone believes the time is ripe for “McCrone Two”, although I suspect someone else will have to take forward the exacting requirements of this work.

‘Industrial harmony’

Back in the early 2000s, the Scottish government committed to recruiting thousands of new staff, recognising that large class sizes were not conducive to providing pupils or teachers with the best learning experience. With pupil numbers falling, teacher numbers would otherwise have dropped.

It also included a phased reduction in maximum class contact time to 22.5 hours per week, equalised across primary, secondary and special schools, as well as a significant uplift in pay. As a result, “high levels of satisfaction with pay among all groups of teachers” and “industrial harmony” were recorded by Audit Scotland.

Teacher recruitment rose. Applications for primary teacher training rose. Applications for secondary teaching rose. In fact, we saw intakes up more than 100 per cent in many subjects. Wouldn’t that be good today?

Elsewhere, McCrone recognised the importance of CPD and support staff. Some 3,500 additional support staff were brought on board to help deliver the agreement.

Between 2001 and 2006, more than £2 billion of additional funding for education services was made available to support implementation of McCrone’s findings.

With the new tax powers available to the Scottish government, there is nothing stopping it from investing in Scottish education on a similar scale now.

However, the McCrone report was about more than raw numbers. It not only shone a light on under-appreciated aspects of teaching - from work-life balance to the role of temporary positions - it sent a clear signal about our commitment to the teaching profession. For a period, at least, it delivered fantastic things. Independent audits praised McCrone for ushering in “a decade of calm in Scotland’s classrooms”.

Almost 20 years on from its formation, we are facing a similar crossroads in education. The SNP has had a decade in charge and all the signs indicate that it is on the wrong path. The party’s ham-fisted implementation of Curriculum for Excellence is at the heart of what has gone wrong.

‘The way ahead’

Scotland has recorded its worst-ever position in the international Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) education rankings. The government’s response is to obsess about structures and centralise. They want to dilute local authorities’ control over education and hand power to remote regional boards and the ever-expanding quango, Education Scotland.

Not everyone agreed with the McCrone process at first. The SNP objected, accusing the committee of “going nowhere fast”. But the party was wrong.

So wrong, in fact, that Nicola Sturgeon had to go to the Scottish Parliament chamber in June 2000 and admit: “I was one of those people who admitted to being sceptical about the minister’s motivation in setting up the committee…I have waited to be proved wrong.

She added: “The report of the McCrone Committee provides us with that opportunity…they have come up with a set of recommendations that, in my view, point the way ahead.”

This proves two things. First, the importance of an approach to education that draws on the experiences of teachers, not diktats from Edinburgh. Second that, unlikely as it seems sometimes, an SNP minister really can change their mind.

McCrone One was a root-and-branch review. It recognised the demands that were placed upon teachers and ensured that they had the pay, conditions, numbers and support to match. However, teachers tell me that the existing arrangements are no longer fair nor representative of what is required of them. Once again, teachers’ commitment and sense of duty needs to be matched by proper protection from increasing workloads and longer hours.

It is time for a new, wide-ranging independent review: McCrone Two. It is time that the SNP changed its mind again. Only then can we start to make meaningful changes and rebuild the shattered trust between teachers and the government.

Tavish Scott is education spokesman for the Scottish Liberal Democrats