​Scottish Parliament elections 2026

NASUWT Scotland launched our election manifesto in December 2025 seeking to influence all political parties to commit to real change in education to help transform the lives of children.

The manifesto, A Better Deal for Teachers, sets out urgent priorities to tackle excessive workload, declining pay, the crisis in additional support needs provision, and the systemic failures that are driving teachers out of the profession.

It demands investment in schools, colleges and wider support services to ensure every child and young person can thrive.

Since its launch, we have been pushing politicians of all parties to commit to our requests in their own manifestos.

This culminated in a political roundtable at our Scotland Executive Council on 27 February, attended by Jenny Gilruth, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, Miles Briggs, Scottish Conservatives, Ross Greer, Scottish Greens, and Willie Rennie, Scottish Liberal Democrats.

You can download our manifesto on the right/below.

Workload/class contact time

A meeting of the SNCT Teachers’ Panel took place on Friday 27 March 2026 and agreed proposals for a reduction in class contact time as follows:

  • An additional 90 minutes of reduced class contact time to be allocated entirely as undirected professional time, largely focused on planning and preparing for lessons as well as assessing and evaluating learners’ progress. A review of relevant definitions within the SNCT handbook will be undertaken to ensure clarity and consistency in the use of professional time.

  • All primary teachers and teachers in special schools will have a maximum weekly class contact time of 21 hours from the commencement of the academic year in August 2027.

  • All secondary teachers will have a maximum weekly class contact time of 21 hours from the commencement of the academic year in August 2029.

NASUWT expressed concerns about the proposed timeline but did not vote against the overall proposals, which were agreed by a substantial majority and will now be implemented.

Proposals for reducing teacher workload are contained in our Scottish Parliament Education Manifesto, which can be found on the right/below.

Teacher wellbeing and pupil behaviour

A programme of school/cluster visits has been instituted, with local campaigning focusing on pupil behaviour/teacher wellbeing, another key strand of our Better Deal for Scotland’s Teachers campaign.

If you feel it would be helpful, please contact us to arrange a visit to your workplace/area.

Pay

A revised pay offer, described as ‘full and final’, was tabled to teaching unions by local authorities’ employer body COSLA on 5 November 2025. It comprised a pay increase on all SNCT salary points of:

  • 4% from 1 August 2025, which will increase to 4.25% from 1 April 2026;

  • a further 3.25% from 1 August 2026 (to 31 July 2027).

The offer was considered and approved by the NASUWT Salaries Committee on 7 November 2025 and, at a meeting of the SNCT Teachers’ Panel on 11 November 2025, all teacher trade unions agreed to accept the offer.

Since the agreement of the offer, there has also been agreement of a reopener clause for year 2 should inflation increase so much that it impacts on the proposed pay award.

NASUWT will continue to campaign in future years for real-terms pay restoration for teachers, something which Cabinet Secretary Jenny Gilruth has described as ‘a legitimate aim’.

 


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