Claims Teacher Numbers Don't Affect Results "Bizarre"

Scotland's largest education union says council body COSLA is wrong over teacher numbers.

The EIS is urging the umbrella body to back down in their dispute with the Finance Secretary.

It's after COSLA published a study claiming there is no link between teacher numbers and pupil attainment.

John Swinney is to discuss funding with local authorities one a case by case basis after walking away from negotiations with the group.

Fife Council leader David Ross says that's "a recipe for chaos" -and says it faces losing funding because it can't fill vacancies.

There are 88 vacancies in primaries and secondaries in the Kingdom, with a further 25 expected next year.

Mr Ross is concerned Fife could lose out on a share of £51million for failing to fill those, and has written to Mr Swinney.

EIS General Secretary Larry Flanagan said maintaining teacher numbers across Scotland is "essential to ensure equality of opportunity for young people in our schools." 

He said: "The fact that COSLA is continuing to resist a national agreement, including the offer of significant new money, is extremely disappointing. 

"However, the signs are that an increasing number of local authorities are making individual commitments to maintain teacher numbers - essentially sidelining COSLA entirely - and thus protecting their own funding allocations from the Scottish Government. COSLA’s statements today, where they are using their own highly selective research in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable, only demonstrate how far out of touch the organisation is from the reality of learning and teaching in our schools.”
 
Mr Flanagan added, “The EIS is concerned that Local Authority leaders, in their rush to condemn the Scottish Government for ensuring that teacher numbers are maintained in line with current provision, seem to be advancing a spurious defence of their desire to slash teacher numbers as being a way of improving the educational attainment of our young people. 

"COSLA has published a selective literature review which, by sleight of hand, attempts to refute as unproven the notion that the number of teachers working in our classes has a direct correlation to improving attainment. Why is it then that almost every successful project which we have implemented to address the impact of poverty, for example nurture classes or literacy programmes, have at their core additional teaching staff?”
 
“It should be remembered that COSLA voluntarily entered into a commitment to maintain teacher numbers in line with pupil rolls, as part of a deal, in 2011, which saw £60 million worth of cuts imposed on Scottish Education – an ongoing saving. Despite this agreement, COSLA failed in two years out of three to reach their target, achieving a further £15 million worth of savings. The Scottish Government should have imposed sanctions for this failure but chose not to.”
 
“The last pay settlement included a further agreement in principle from COSLA to maintain numbers. Despite that, local authorities were planning to savage staffing levels in our schools at the same time as accepting the £41 million subsidy being paid to them by the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government then offered a further £10 million but COSLA couldn’t get past its internal squabbling and accept this additional funding which has resulted in the Scottish Government making the funds available in a Council by Council basis – we urge all councils to accept the funding that is on offer.”