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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nStill more, our motto penned in 1847 is and must continue to be our guiding and our binding maxim.
We must continue to resist the profit before people economic paradigm that\u2019s created a society riven with inequality, that sees our public services on their knees, including education, and our social security system in ruins, living standards in free-fall and levels of poverty and deprivation still rising\u2026meaning that more and more of our young people are suffering serious educational disadvantage.
It\u2019s no accident that 43% of our pupils have a recognised additional support need – a failure of government that the right to education is being frustrated by the gross insufficiency of funding for ASN provision\u2026 and we need to be very careful to give no ground to the voices on the right that are now harping even louder for the dismantling of inclusive education and the abandonment of the presumption to mainstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of this is the architecture of the mega-wealth-holders who calculate that their interests can be best served by fanning the flames of racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All text-book tactics to try to divide \u2013 and conquer – working-class communities, ordinary people.
We\u2019ve seen this in history before and we know where it leads if it\u2019s allowed to go unchallenged.
The EIS does stand up and challenge the narratives of division and hate, and offers a hopeful alternative, at the same time as holding the UK and Scottish Governments to account on their failures to deliver for our citizens, their accountability for the sense of futility and fatalism that\u2019s an absolute gift to the far-right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our Stand Up for Quality Education Campaign, our manifesto for the recent election, are key and that\u2019s why we\u2019ll continue to echo the demands that we made in that manifesto: more teachers, including in early years, smaller classes, better ASN provision and universal free school meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spend now for the common good, save multiple times over on corrective spending from the public purse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Invest more now in Education across all sectors, for the benefit of our whole society longer-term.
Because that\u2019s exactly what education should be for\u2026the common good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Education should be about collaboration, working together for the common good and ringfencing the resources to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Less inequality, better health outcomes, greater prosperity, less interaction with the justice system for all of our citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Preventative spend – it\u2019s a no-brainer. And Education is a critical antidote to the poison of far-right politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s how we build for a future of bread and roses and books – a future that rejects hate, a future that is hopeful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are determined. And we will organise across all spaces to challenge and offer hope in this new age of monsters\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Standing up for teachers and lecturers, standing up for Scottish education, standing up for rights, peace and social justice alongside the rest of the trade union movement in Scotland, the UK and internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At last year\u2019s AGM, we demonstrated our willingness to up the ante on the SNCT workload dispute – we launched the first of three ballot with the press of that big red button – the visual display of your intent to really fight for what you were promised across a nine-month campaign that leveraged a tangible result – a contractual change that will significantly and permanently improve the working conditions of teachers and the learning conditions of pupils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our second statutory ballot result was a gamechanger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hour before it was announced, there was nothing on the table from the Scottish Government – not even a response to the draft agreement that the EIS had prepared and that the rest of the Teachers\u2019 Panel had adopted weeks before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A draft agreement that included phased implementation – a pragmatic acknowledgement of the significant shortfall in the numbers of Secondary teachers, that EIS members had pointed out was a significant issue and one that needed to be addressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No response to the Teachers\u2019 Side proposed terms of agreement and no alternative on the table until after that ballot result came in\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Scottish Government gamble that the anti-trade union thresholds would thwart us for a second time.
But they didn\u2019t beat us a second time – because when we fell short by only a few hundred votes the first time around, we didn\u2019t press the panic button – we kept cool heads, we analysed, we strategised even harder\u2026 and we tenaciously went after a mandate. And we got it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following day, with thresholds well-beaten and an overwhelming majority in favour of strike and ASOS\u2026 and the Cabinet Secretary urgently wanted to talk to us, talk to the EIS, because our members were the ones about to strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pressure on the government came from seeing that tens of thousands of EIS members were limbering up to take strike action that would shut schools, and that would see ASOS and associated publicity go on right up until the election, forced the Scottish Government to fold on the use of time – the full 90 minutes would go to preparation and correction, our red line met.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sej.org.uk\/agm2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2026\/06\/11_EIS_Fri_AR.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThe Scottish Government also agreed to go as far as it could as fast as it could on national implementation of class contact reduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the whole implementation would be fully funded by the Scottish Government. Full funding, no cuts to other parts of the Education service, no additional workload for Headteachers, Deputes and Principal Teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We did it. We got it over the line. A deal to cut workload and create jobs. An additional \u00a340 million to start getting more teachers in our schools right now\u2026 right now starting to tackle the precarity that has plagued our profession for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this latest win will be felt by all teachers in Nursery, Primary, Secondary and Special schools well within the lifetime of the current parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We expect the terms to be delivered in full with sufficient numbers of Primary, Secondary and Special school teachers to be able to deliver quality, human-centred, in-person teaching and learning to all of our pupils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No back-sliding. No cheap workarounds. Digital as a default won\u2019t do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The EIS will continue to demand better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the industrial front – we\u2019ve been defending jobs and course provision with strike action at the University of the West of Scotland and Edinburgh Napier – in both cases getting compulsory redundancies off the table, EIS-ULA unity and collective strength protecting the livelihoods of members and the quality of education at these institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All power to members at GCU and Queen Margaret as they prepare to do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Battling hard on health and safety at City of Glasgow College where\u2026we have our arms around the striking welders and the Reps because we absolutely understand that especially when it comes to health and safety, an injury to one is an injury to all and we simply won\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we do the hard work as a union, we reap the rewards for our members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in the current economic and fiscal climate, unfortunately, it looks like there\u2019s no end in sight to that hard graft in the next number of years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But as well as fighting one battle at a time, we keep our eyes on the bigger prize that the trade union movement is after – a fairer, more equal, more socially just society in which wealth is more equally distributed, a society that\u2019s free of discrimination and where everyone can thrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unity is our strength as we continue to stand up for quality education and fight for the common good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n