On Saturday 25th October EIS members from all over Scotland turned out in their droves, braving a cold and windy day to march through Edinburgh behind the EIS national banner, loudly demanding an end to poverty in all its forms.

Wrapped up in hats and woolly scarves, and carrying colourful, creative banners, placards and posters, EIS local associations, FELA and ULA members delivered total solidarity with many other sister trade unions and charitable third sector organisations, marching in lock-step with the Poverty Alliance to make serious demands upon the Scottish Government to tackle poverty once and for all.

The strong and resolute EIS turnout for the march constituted a culmination of the support that the EIS has provided to the Poverty Alliance and the Scotland Demands Better campaign over many months.

In June, General Secretary, Andrea Bradley, spoke at the Scotland Demands Better launch event, drawing attention to the impacts of poverty on children’s learning and health and wellbeing, and delivered a clarion call to the Scottish Government about the need for a political and economic solution to this blight upon families’ lives.

Andrea spoke powerfully about the links between the poverty-related achievement and attainment gap and the current EIS ‘Stand up for Quality Education Campaign’, making a clear and emphatic case for increased and ring-fenced core education funding, for better support for learners with additional support needs and the urgent need for significant solutions to teachers’ workload and stress, not least of which is the fulfilment of the promised reduction in class contact time.

Also in June, the EIS Executive Committee agreed to donate £5000 to the Scotland Demands Better campaign, highlighting the EIS commitment to its objectives.

In September, EIS National Officer David Dick spoke at a public meeting for the Poverty Alliance, emphasising the EIS’s policy, practice and actions taken over many years addressing the impact of poverty in education, and highlighting the importance of cross-union support and tangible solutions from the Scottish Government.

The Scotland Demands Better campaign has three broad areas of focus; better jobs, better investment for life’s essentials and better social security. EIS members from all over Scotland turned up at the march to walk side by side with colleagues from other sectors, to show the Scottish Government the strength of feeling around these demands.

Initially meeting outside the Scottish Parliament, EIS colleagues, local associations and branches of FELA and the ULA met centrally and walked together as a sizeable bloc, making sure that the strength and solidarity of teacher and lecturer voices were clearly heard both outside the Scottish Parliament and ringing through the streets of Edinburgh.

The rally finished at the Meadows where EIS members were able to get some hot food, attend stalls, and listen to speeches, music and entertainment for the rest of the afternoon. Speakers included Peter Kelly for the Poverty Alliance, Roz Foyer from the STUC and author and social commentator, Darren McGarvey provided the keynote address. Common themes in all speeches were the recognition that poverty is a political choice, that it wreaks devastation on communities and individuals, and that it is now being weaponised by the far-right, leading to an entrenchment of social division.

The Scotland Demands Better march galvanised people from all walks of life, from across Scotland to come together and make their voices heard. The campaign will now build on this demonstration of collective solidarity, to press for change.

At the EIS, work in support of the campaign will continue as will our endeavours to effect meaningful policy change and secure a commitment from the Scottish Government to increase core funding for education, and to meaningfully address the impacts of poverty on children and young people, which teachers and schools are witness to daily.

As Local Association Secretary from South Lanarkshire, Jennifer Gaffney, commented at the march, “The most important way of dealing with the poverty-related attainment and achievement gap is to tackle poverty in Scottish society.

EIS members, teachers and lecturers do their very best for learners everyday, in increasingly challenging social and economic circumstances – but the Scottish Government needs to truly recognise and address the effects that growing up in poverty has on children and young people and their educational experiences and outcomes, if we want to see real improvements in the lives of all our learners”.