TEACHERS in Scotland have voted overwhelmingly for industrial action to tackle “excessive” workloads, the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) union said yesterday.

EIS members working in secondary schools backed industrial action by 95 per cent and will now take action short of a strike, which could result in a refusal to co-operate with the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).

EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said the result “reflects the frustration of Scotland’s secondary teachers over the excessive assessment demands being placed on them and their pupils,” and hailed the “very clear mandate” to immediately “work-to-contract in relation to SQA activity.”

The union intends to target both “SQA bureaucracy and excessive internal unit assessment, with its associated workload burden for teachers and unacceptable assessment pressures on students.”

Mr Flanagan cited repeated government promises to tackle teacher workload, but said that, in almost two years, “not one single unit assessment has been removed.”

“This overwhelming ballot result today should send a very clear message to the Scottish government, to the SQA and to Education Scotland that change needs to happen and to happen quickly,” the EIS leader said.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was “very disappointed” at the result, adding: “I don’t believe that this is in the interests of teachers and I certainly don’t believe it is in the interests of young people.”

Ms Sturgeon said that the Scottish government was “clear about our determination to take action to reduce teacher workload,” while adding it was “working very hard to ensure that industrial action does not take place in our schools.”