EIS chiefs in strike action call

The Scottish Government wants smaller classes

The ruling council of Scotland's largest teaching union want a ballot on industrial action over budget cuts.

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) will place a motion before its conference later in the week saying the education sector is being damaged.

Councils across Scotland have announced cuts to school funding in order to make their budgets balance.

The Scottish Government said that local authority funding was increasing year on year.

But leaders of the EIS union said planned cuts by many councils translated into job losses - with the threat of some being compulsory.

Special provision

They also said they feared that reduced spending on education would result in bigger classes at a time when politicians were talking about smaller class sizes.

A government spokesman said the historic concordat signed by the country's 32 local authorities contained an agreement to deliver year-on-year progress in reducing class sizes.

He added: "The local government settlement specifically included a special provision to maintain teacher numbers nationally of around 53,000 in the face of falling school rolls - by doing this local authorities can reduce class sizes.

"This means there will be 20,000 new teachers in training by 2011 which is a major commitment."

The government said that local government budgets were increasing by 5%, 4.1%, 3.4% over the next three years.

The spokesman said: "Additionally, there is �3bn capital investment over the spending review period."

The EIS said it wanted specific steps to ensure fewer new teachers ended up with short-term posts, or no posts at all.

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