THE leader of Scotland’s biggest teaching union warned right-wing education critics to back off yesterday and demanded that government end poverty that “limits life chances.”

EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan told delegates at the union’s annual conference in Perth that “right-wing commentators were having a specific go” at them — with one demanding that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon should take on the EIS.

“The inference which might be drawn is that somehow the EIS is the block to ‘progress’ … when the reality is that as Scotland’s teachers, we are the vehicle of progress,” said Mr Flanagan.

Poverty, he said, was the real cause of the attainment gap in Scottish education.

Teachers would continue to work with all partners on tackling the impact of poverty, said Mr Flanagan, adding: “The real way to address the issue is to tackle the poverty at source.”

EIS conference delegates overwhelmingly supported demands for a backdated pay rise and raised the idea of industrial action on the issue.