Education secretary Mike Russell emerged unscathed from his appearance before the EIS annual meeting in Perth at the weekend, after promising to set up a group to tackle teacher workload.
With delegates having passed motions backing industrial action over the impact of increased bureaucracy and pension reforms, Mr Russell might have expected a less-than- welcoming reception.
Instead, his speech was greeted with a fair bit of applause and only a few heckles.
Mr Russell said that striking would not be helpful but he sought to offer Scotland’s biggest teaching union his assurance that he was committed to stripping red tape from classrooms.
He insisted that the burdens teachers were bearing were the result of the “misapplication” of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) in some schools.
He plans to set up a group comprising teacher organisations, Education Scotland, local authority education directors and a parents’ forum to look at workload issues, with its first meeting expected to take place within the next couple of weeks.
The education secretary said: “The Scottish Government will work closely with the EIS and other key players as part of a group to identify the key issues and come up with ways in which we can reduce needless workload and bureaucracy.
“I can also announce new teacher support materials. We will provide more help for Higher, Advanced Highers and Nationals 1, 2 and 3, along with new resources on assessment and moderation.
“This is on top of the £3.7 million built into local authority budgets this year and next year to support teachers’ work on assessment standards.”
Mr Russell also said it was “unaccept-able” that many teachers might have to work until they were 68 and he blamed the UK Government for forcing through changes to pensions.
He also responded to comments made by Michael Gove, education secretary for England, during his visit to the Scottish Conservative conference, in which he claimed that CfE lacked rigour and Scottish schools were struck in a rut.
Mr Russell regarded it as a badge of honour to have been “Goved” and said that attacking CfE was tantamount to attacking everyone who had worked hard to put it in place.
EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said much of Mr Russell’s speech had been well received by delegates.
“In particular, the EIS welcomes the cabinet secretary’s intention to establish a working group to tackle teacher workload and reduce the amount of unnecessary bureaucracy associated with CfE,” he said.
“His comments on pension negotiations were also encouraging, particularly his clear statement that he feels that teachers working to 68 is unacceptable something that we feel the Scottish Government has the abilityto address through workforce planning to ensure that teachers can retire earlier without significant financial detriment.”
Mr Flanagan added: “Overall, although delegates clearly did not agree with everything that the cabinet secretary had to say, it is positive that he was willing to speak to teachers and lecturers directly and also to listen to their concerns about education in Scotland.”