* Placing requests have created a “totally dysfunctional” education system, exacerbated by council reform two years ago, Frank Healy, East Dunbartonshire, said.
Councils in the Glasgow area were particularly badly affected with his own authority taking in 4,000 outsiders out of a school population of 18,000. Most came from Glasgow and some from North Lanarkshire.
Mr Healy said Glasgow had lost about pound;2 million in funding, while in East Dunbartonshire schools with lower pupil costs were overflowing. Delegates approved a study into the impact of cross-boundary moves.
* Flat-rating salary awards was once again rejected. Malcolm Maciver, the EIS’s salaries’ convener, said 90 per cent of teachers were either in promoted posts or at the top of the salary scale.
Some 18,000 were at the top of the basic scale and 22,000 in promoted posts. Only 277 were on the first three levels. “That is the reality of where our members are,” Mr Maciver said.
* Membership of the EIS currently stands at 50,807, with women accounting for 72 per cent of signed-up teachers.
* Bullying is back on the agenda, with primary staff complaining about headteachers. Bill Moffat, a Renfrewshire primary head, said the union should tell teachers what it was reasonable to do and what they can refuse to do. Heads under pressure from the Inspectorate were coercing staff.
* Tighter controls on employing children are needed, Peter Dickson, East Dunbartonshire, said. A 14-year-old boy he found asleep in class had been up since 4am to do a milk round.
Glasgow issued no employment permits for pupils last year, Mr Dickson said, but one secondary in Moray had issued 200. There was no consistency in how authorities applied the law.
The Low Pay Unit estimated that three-quarters of the 2 million children who were working were employed illegally.
