School staff struggling to keep up standards amid cuts, says union

SUPPORT staff at Scottish schools are struggling to maintain standards for pupils because of cuts, a leading trade union has claimed.

A report released by the Unison union states that staff are having to battle a lack of time and resources, as well as heavy workloads.

In what is thought to be one of the biggest surveys of school support staff ever undertaken in Scotland, workers reported a lack of educational supplies and dirtier schools at a time when pupil numbers and education support needs are increasing.

According to Unison, there are now 6,707 more pupils in Scottish schools than in 2010, but the number of support staff has fallen by 1,841, with the number of teachers dropping by 1,389.

Carol Ball, who chairs Unison’s education committee, said: “Cutting hours and not replacing staff means job losses are less likely to get noticed outside school but these cuts still damage our children’s education inside school.

“Staff try to maintain a high-quality service to give children the best start in life but this is enormously diffi- cult when schools are short of supplies and staff workloads continue to increase and libraries, sports lunch and after-school clubs and music tuition have been cut. And this hurts the poorest kids the most.”

Those who took part in the survey include classroom assistants, pupil support workers, school administrative and clerical staff, as well as the school cleaning staff, janitors, technicians, catering staff, librarians and library assistants and home-link workers.

Dave Watson, Unison’s regional manager, added: “The Scottish Government has targets to reduce inequality in educational outcomes. Sadly, it is children from the most deprived backgrounds that need the access to libraries, or help from librarians.

“They are less likely to have computers, printers or quiet warm places to do homework. If school libraries have limited opening hours and do not have qualified staff, then young people will have less access to information and less support to find the information, even when it is open.” THE Edinburgh skyline is changing as demolition crews continue their work to raze a 40-year-old shopping centre to the ground.

Bulldozers have been flattening the St James Centre as part of an £850 million redevelopment of the site at the east end of Princes Street. The shopping centre and adjacent office complex were built in the 1970s.

The site will be transformed into 850,000sq ft of shopping, dining and entertainment space, a five-star hotel, up to 250 new homes and a cinema. Picture: Gordon Terris IT is The Herald’s policy to correct errors as soon as we can and all corrections and clarifications will usually appear on this page.

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