A review, aimed at providing the Scottish Government with advice on future education reform priorities, will make recommendations to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, Jenny Gilruth, at the end of March 2026.

Launched in September 2025 and led by John Wilson, former headteacher of Broughton High School who was appointed as Independent Professional Adviser (IPA) by the Cabinet Secretary, the review follows the passage of the Education (Scotland) Act 2025 and is focussed on the areas of education governance, school funding and supporting school improvement.

Whilst the EIS has welcomed the chance to contribute to the review, Scotland’s teachers will undoubtedly reflect on the considerable amount of time and resource expended on an array of education reform reviews in recent years with – thus far – little in the way of tangible positive changes to the very challenging conditions in which they work.

Whilst the 2025 Act replaced the SQA with Qualifications Scotland and created a new, purportedly independent, office of His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, there has been little evidence, at this stage, of the collective vision and cultural transformation articulated in the National Discussion, and in the Muir and Hayward reports, being meaningfully implemented in practice.

School Governance and Empowerment

School Empowerment has been a watchword in Scottish Education in recent years, but many teachers would contend that it has rarely translated into their working reality. EIS members – including senior leaders – frequently complain that they feel professionally disempowered as education is the focus of politicised debate and external pressure, often through the very narrow lens of attainment data.

This traps many school leaders and classroom teachers in a culture of high-stakes accountability, top-down scrutiny and performativity.

the EIS has made clear that the empowerment agenda must extend to all professionals in the system – including classroom teachers.

Whilst the IPA’s review will consider the extent to which the existing Empowering School Leaders Guidance and Headteachers’ Charter sufficiently supports headteachers, the EIS has made clear that the empowerment agenda must extend to all professionals in the system – including classroom teachers.

High quality education can only be delivered by the collective endeavour of schools as professional communities with shared ambitions for children and young people. This aligns with Professor Ken Muir’s call for a genuine redistribution of power, influence and resources to empower teachers and put their voices alongside learners’ at the heart of decision-making.

Translating that ambition into reality is unlikely to be achieved by reviewing existing guidance; rather, it will require teachers being provided with the time, the resources and the professional agency and trust to shape teaching and learning as envisioned by CfE.

Whilst it is undoubtedly true that many school leaders, working with their teams, feel best-placed to understand and to respond to the needs of their learning communities, EIS members in senior leadership positions frequently report that ‘empowerment’, in the current context, rings hollow: all too often they are left unsupported to marshal diminishing resources; to respond to an expanding range and complexity of additional support needs; to deal with a significant rise in unacceptable behaviour, violence and aggression; to support over-worked staff who are at breaking point; and to support families struggling in the face of the impacts of poverty.

Funding

Of course, ‘empowerment’ at present equates in large part to headteachers being responsible for school budgets through Devolved School Management and through the Scottish Attainment Challenge (specifically targeted at closing the poverty-related attainment gap) areas which are in scope of the IPA’s review.

The EIS maintains that closing the poverty-related achievement and attainment gap can only take place in a sustained and meaningful way when core provision funding is secure, ample and permanent.

When the Scottish Parliament in 2017 legislated to reduce child poverty by 2030, the EIS was clear that this had to be matched by the allocation of permanent additional funding for education. Instead, government chose to use short-term PEF and SAC funding, to effectively conceal core resourcing and funding deficits.

Whilst the 2025 PEF report highlighted an additional 700 FTE teaching posts, these are reliant on a temporary funding stream creating precarity for teachers rather than the sustainable, strategic approach to staffing which schools require to tackle the deeply embedded impacts of poverty.

The EIS maintains that closing the poverty-related achievement and attainment gap can only take place in a sustained and meaningful way when core provision funding is secure, ample and permanent.

Additionality funding has also brought with it a raft of attainment-focussed accountability demands on schools, creating additional workload pressures for teachers and in some cases a poorer learning experience for children and young people.

Improvement

The IPA review’s focus on school improvement was triggered by an HM Inspection of how local authorities supported schools to improve, which found an apparent inconsistency of outcomes for secondary schools. Naturally, the EIS supports school improvement but the current top-down performativity culture in education acts as a barrier, rather than a support, to school improvement.

The National Improvement Framework (NIF), continues to be experienced by teachers as an external data-driven accountability mechanism focused on attainment metrics, simplistic target-setting and arbitrary ‘stretch aims’.

Moreover, despite the establishment of an ‘independent’ Inspectorate, there are few signs so far of a significant departure from a model of inspection which for too many teachers is a disempowering and high-stakes experience, which drives workload, disrupts teaching and learning and is of limited value in supporting accurate self-evaluation and informing professional practice.

A refrain from EIS members is the constant pressure on schools to be ‘inspection ready’ with many schools and local authorities carrying out activities which are effectively inspection rehearsals.

Much will depend on the approach adopted by the recently appointed Chief Inspector, but the EIS has made clear to the IPA its view that the current system of scrutiny is anachronistic and ineffective and that improvement is best achieved through a model of peer evaluation and professional collaboration that places trust in teacher professionalism.

The Future?

Without a commitment to permanent, ring-fenced funding for education, the culture change, which is so badly needed to deliver better outcomes for children and young people and more rewarding working conditions for teachers, will be thwarted and education will continue to be subject to interference and the whims of political discourse.

investment in education will ultimately result in savings across a range of public services, such as health and criminal justice

The Scottish Government has the ability and powers to invest in and support quality public services by raising revenue.

Such investment in education will ultimately result in savings across a range of public services, such as health and criminal justice, as positive educational outcomes for children and young people transform into positive outcomes for them in later life, for their families and for society as a whole.

After six years of talking and unfulfilled promises, it’s time for action; for culture change; and for the vision of an ‘ambitious, inclusive and supportive’ education system, advocated through the Calls to Action of the National Discussion, to become a reality.

Let’s bring the joy back to teaching!