No concrete plan has emerged on reducing Scottish teachers’ class-contact time, despite council leaders meeting to discuss the policy this afternoon.
Council leaders insist that more detail is needed and that teacher supply problems must be fixed to realise the policy, which was a key promise in the SNP’s manifesto for the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections.
After local authorities’ body Cosla issued a statement this afternoon, however, councils were accused of “running down the clock” on the policy until the next Scottish Parliament election in May 2026 - despite indicating that they would produce a report on how to deliver the policy before the end of June.
The promise made in 2021 was that teachers’ contact time would be reduced by 90 minutes a week, from 22.5 to 21 hours.
When will teachers’ contact time be reduced?
In the statement, Katie Hagmann, Cosla’s resources spokesperson, said: “We will continue to work with Scottish government and trade unions on reducing class-contact time. To deliver this, we need to ensure there are no adverse impacts on children and young people’s outcomes.
“We also need to be clear on the practicalities and cost implications of implementation.”
She suggested that there were other priorities for councils: “Closing the poverty-related attainment gap and ensuring children have the support they need to learn must remain our absolute focus.”
Tony Buchanan, Cosla’s children and young people spokesperson, said: “A reduction in class-contact time of 1.5 hours a week is around two learning weeks of the school year - it is not an insignificant change.
“This is why we’ve undertaken significant scoping work in recent months. This was discussed by Scotland’s council leaders today. It is clear from that work that in reducing class-contact time there will be costs and impacts on wider services; these must be considered carefully as we take steps forward.”
Cosla also said: “There are very different contexts across council areas. For example, some rural authorities struggle to recruit teachers, and there can be specific gaps in certain subjects.
“This means, in order to deliver on reduced class-contact time across Scotland, we would need to ensure rural authorities have the supply of teachers required.”
Cosla said it was “in the process of discussing potential solutions with Scottish government to make reducing contact time viable for all areas in Scotland”.
It also flagged up a government consultation that it said had started last week, to gauge pupils’ and families’ views on reducing contact time. No details of the consultation appeared to be available online, but Cosla insisted that it was “vital” to “take young people’s voices into account” before pushing ahead with the policy.
With many schools breaking up for the summer this week, and others to follow next week, it now seems certain that if the policy is to be progressed, teachers will have to wait until some time in the 2025-26 school year for details on how this will happen.
‘Just another list of excuses’
Teaching unions have been growing increasingly impatient in recent months.
This week Tes Scotland reported on a Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) survey showing that every teacher who responded was working more than their 35 contracted hours, and that the vast majority were prepared to take industrial action over class-contact time.
Seamus Searson, general secretary of the SSTA, reacted to this afternoon’s Cosla statement: “We were told that Cosla would produce a plan on contact time by the end of June. Instead this is just another list of excuses not to press on with the policy to reduce teachers’ class-contact time, despite the education secretary underlining her commitment to it.
“It seems like they’re running down the clock until the Scottish Parliament election next May, in the hope that whatever government is formed will have other priorities.”
Mr Searson added: “This is really shortsighted, as taking the pressure off teachers has benefits for everyone - not least the pupils they teach, who can only gain from teachers who are less burnt out and have more time for planning and preparation.”
In early June, Andrea Bradley, general secretary of the EIS teaching union, criticised the Scottish government for failing to deliver on class-contact time, as she prepared to open a consultative ballot on industrial action over workload.
She said: “This was something that the Scottish government, in its last election manifesto, pledged to address by reducing teachers’ class-contact time by 1.5 hours per week. Four years on from that promise being made, there has been absolutely no tangible progress towards delivering it, and no proposals as to how it will be delivered.”
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