Scotland’s local council elections take place on Thursday 5 May.

All five parties represented in the Scottish Parliament have now published their local manifestos. Here are five key education promises that each of the parties has made to voters in Scotland:

SNP

• Recruit 3,500 additional teachers and 500 classroom assistants, on top of 1,400 recruited during the Covid pandemic.

• Extend free school meals to P6-7s (P1-5s are already entitled to free meals), but the initial target dates have been pushed back.

• Give every child “an electronic device, free internet and the support to use it”, reiterating a promise made before the 2021 Scottish Parliament election.

• Make music a “core subject” and ensure that school-based instrumental music teachers are registered with and accredited by the General Teaching Council for Scotland, in order to create “a professionally recognised national music teaching workforce”.

• Local authorities to work with the Scottish government on “high-quality anti-racist education in our schools”, tracking progress by improving the reporting and publication of racist incidents in schools.

The SNP 2022 local election manifesto can be read here.

Scottish Conservatives

• Aim to set up a local tutoring scheme and provide additional funding for after-school classes.

• Pressurise the government to fund a pilot to lengthen the school day, in order to “further help pupils to catch up on missed learning”.

• Start a “national conversation around replacing Curriculum for Excellence”.

• Give “headteachers more control over their schools, and teachers more control of the content of lessons in their classrooms”, and parents “more involvement in the management of schools”.

• Tory councillors will “vote to boycott” national “school sex surveys that ask children intrusive personal questions”.

The Scottish Conservatives’ 2022 local election manifesto can be read here.

Scottish Labour

• “Education recovery plans, tailored to each child” - allowing “learning and resources [to] be targeted to those most impacted by the lockdown” - and a “targeted tutoring programme” to help “recover lost learning”.

• Increase the number of teachers and support staff, and end temporary contracts.

• Every pupil to “learn skills in software development, content generation and digital security” as part of drive for “digital learning” to be “embedded into schools”.

• Improve attainment through expansion of the Challenge Schools funding, increase free school meals provision and investment in additional support needs staff.

• Provide “extracurricular activities for all” so that every pupil has “opportunities to access arts, sporting and recreational activities”.

The Scottish Labour 2022 local election manifesto can be read here.

Scottish Greens

• Review local processes for dealing with sexual harassment and abuse in schools so that “survivors feel able to come forward and that a zero-tolerance approach is consistently taken”, and “ensure that consent is taught as a core part of sex and relationships education”.

• Ensure that classrooms are Covid-safe, and appropriately ventilated and heated.

• Reform local council education committees to include parents, carers, teachers, trade unions and young people.

• Ensure that every pupil with additional support needs who would benefit from a coordinated support plan (CSP) receives one, including care-experienced young people.

• Bring in statutory guidance to cap school uniform costs, and “ensure that uniform requirements are gender neutral and do not discriminate on the basis of any protected characteristic”.

The Scottish Greens’ 2022 local election manifesto can be read here.

Scottish Liberal Democrats

• Aim to cut class sizes by supporting a “nationwide teacher job guarantee”, based on the principle that “no teacher should be unemployed or feel underemployed”.

• Push for Scotland to rejoin international assessments of education as a means to “keep pace with the best in the world”.

• Campaign to end national testing of four- and five-year-olds.

• Offer families the right to defer entry into Primary 1 and have funded early learning and childcare instead.

• Support voluntary pilot schemes exploring a longer statutory early-years phase, which could mean raising the school starting age to 7.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats’ 2022 local election manifesto can be read here.