Comment: Teachers are beyond breaking point

FOR years the EIS has been highlighting the impact of continual budget cuts on the ability of schools to deliver the education which the children of Edinburgh deserve.

Staff have worked incredibly hard to counteract reductions in everything from support for pupils with special needs, to science technicians, to guidance teachers, to principal teachers, and even in budgets to buy basic resources.

It is greatly to the credit of all staff working in schools that, despite a decade of austerity-driven cutbacks, the number of pupils gaining five or more awards at SCQF levels 5 and 6 meet or exceed the national average.

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But this is not sustainable – the system, and the teachers who keep that system going, are beyond breaking point.

We have to see sustained investment if we are actually going to be able to give our pupils the education that they deserve. In Scotland’s capital city, surely we should be seeking to be at the top of the investment league table?

Campaigning for a tourist levy, and for that levy to be used to support education in Edinburgh, is only one small thing the EIS has been doing to try to bring that message home.

We are tired of hearing that the system needs to do more with less – we can’t!

If we are going to deliver, we need the resources to enable that to happen.

Alison Murphy is the Edinburgh local association secretary for the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS).