Teachers and lecturers from across Scotland have gathered at Perth Concert Hall for the Educational Institute of Scotland’s (EIS) annual general meeting.

Although Scottish education didn’t feature strongly in the British election — given its almost wholly devolved status — it will certainly be centre stage as we move towards the 2016 Scottish Parliament election.

As Scotland’s largest teaching union, with over 80 per cent of the country’s teachers and lecturers in our membership, it’s important that the EIS AGM sets the agenda for the forthcoming campaign.

This is, of course, a challenging time for public services and for trade unions. The divisive age of austerity that was imposed during the term of the Westminster coalition government has caused considerable damage to public services like education, as funding, jobs and provision have been hacked away. And with the return of a majority Tory government in last month’s general election, the future looks no better.

While the claim is that these cuts are a financial necessity, the reality is that this continuing assault on public services and public-sector workers is ideologically driven. This is also the case with the government’s planned legislation that aims to weaken the power of trade unions.

Over the last five years, we have already seen detrimental changes imposed to some valuable protections that trade unions fought hard to win — such as in relation to health and safety and employment law.

Now, the new Tory government at Westminster plans to introduce legislation to further curb trade union activity and to weaken the ability of trade unions to take industrial action during legitimate disputes.

In a country that already has extremely strict anti-trade union laws, the government’s plans are nothing less than a reprehensible attack on working people.

Within this current political climate, it is more important than ever that workers stand together, through their trade unions, to protect their rights and to defend the vital public services on which so many people rely.

A brief glance through the agenda for this year’s EIS AGM demonstrates that anger is growing over the continuing attacks on education and on teaching professionals.

Teachers and lecturers are often reluctant to take any form of industrial action due to their concerns over the potential impact on learners. So it is significant that, this year, there is a marked increase in AGM motions up for debate in relation to pay, conditions and workload matters — including a significant number that raise the prospect of industrial action, including strikes.

The impact of austerity is continuing to be felt in schools, colleges and universities in communities across Scotland.

The decline in funding has led to cuts in staff numbers, rising class sizes, a scarcity of learning and teaching resources and soaring levels of workload and work-related stress.

In schools, the continuing, and under-resourced, process of curricular change has heaped additional duties onto already hard-pressed teaching staff. Rising class sizes, coupled with cuts to both teacher numbers and to support staff levels, have added to the problem.

A recent EIS workload survey highlighted that teachers are working an average of 46.5 hours per week, despite a contract that only pays them for 35 hours. It is little wonder that, in light of soaring workload and declining real-terms pay, teachers are becoming increasingly disaffected.

While Scottish education is continuing to perform well, it faces many significant challenges that must be tackled to ensure that all learners can access the quality educational experience that they deserve. Education is an investment in our young people and in the future of our country. It is time to halt the cuts to education, to stop the attacks on our teachers and to invest in delivering the best education system for all of Scotland.

• Larry Flanagan is general secretary of the EIS.