High school staff absence is now being caused more by stress than Covid, the annual general meeting of Scotland’s largest teaching union will hear today.
This afternoon, in her address to the first in-person EIS AGM since before the pandemic, outgoing president Heather Hughes will say: “Much of this stress-related absence is down to the huge pressures teachers have faced in dealing with the pandemic as well as the work-related stress that, quite unacceptably, continues to come with the territory of being a teacher.
“This is something that must be tackled as part of the longer-term recovery effort.”
Ms Hughes will say that even the most experienced teachers are currently “straining to cope” and will talk about the myriad challenges facing the profession, from unsustainable workload and the fight for fair pay to the need for more preparation time and more specialist teachers and assistants.
She will also say that the lack of appropriate support for pupils with additional support needs - and in particular those with social, emotional and behavioural problems -- is leading to “violent and aggressive behaviour” and that the EIS supports inclusion, “but not this unsupported, under-resourced model that teachers are currently forced to deliver”.
She will add: “It doesn’t work for us, and it certainly doesn’t work for the young people corralled into inappropriate, inadequately supported learning environments.”
Ms Hughes is expected to call for “more specialised [additional support needs] teachers and assistants, more training in this area and critically more money and resources to bring all of this about”.
“It’s way past time for the Scottish government to put its money where its mouth is and properly fund ASN provision.”
Earlier this week Tes Scotland reported that a ballot on strike action could be held by the EIS if the policy to reduce teachers’ weekly class-contact time by 90 minutes is not put into practice by August 2023.
Support will be sought at the EIS AGM - which gets underway in Dundee this afternoon and ends on Saturday - for a motion urging the union’s council to “campaign vigorously” for the implementation of the reduction in teachers’ contact hours, which the Scottish government had previously indicated would happen in August 2022.
On class-contact time, Ms Hughes will say that the union will continue to call for a maximum of 20 contact hours weekly and a maximum of 20 young people in all classes no matter what age, stage or subject in mainstream education.
The Scottish government’s promised reduction in class-contact time does not go as far as this: it would take maximum class-contact time to 21 hours per week, from the current 22.5 hours.
Another key issue for the union is pay and Ms Hughes will reiterate that the EIS wants “a cost-of-living pay rise” and “will organise, will march, and if necessary, will ballot our members for industrial action” to achieve it.
“Make no mistake colleagues, if no reasonable offer is made with your mandate, we will vacate our classrooms. We demand this pay rise for ourselves, for our families and for the future of education in Scotland.”
Scottish teachers are demanding a 10 per cent pay rise this year (2022-23) but the current offer on the table from councils is 2 per cent - which has been described as “completely inadequate” by the EIS.
Outgoing EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan has also warned there is the “very real prospect” of industrial action next term over pay.
In Dundee - where the EIS AGM is being held - there is already strike action planned over the introduction of faculties to the city’s schools.
The EIS, which argues the local authority’s proposals “would remove the vital experience offered by subject specialist principal teachers” and have “long-term damaging consequences”, has told Dundee City Council that its members in all secondary schools will strike on Wednesday 22 June.
Strike action is also being threatened in another Scottish council, the Western Isles Council, over its remote-learning plans.
A consultative ballot carried out yesterday, based on a turnout of 74 per cent, found that 88 per cent of EIS members were prepared to strike over the plans for “harmonised timetables and digitalised learning”.
