The SNP’S plan to transfer responsibilities for education from councils to schools will be “hugely opposed” by overburdened headteachers unless it is accompanied by funding to hire more staff, primary headteachers’ leaders said today.

The Association of Headteachers and Deputes in Scotland (AHDS) was responding to the SNP manifesto, launched last week, which introduced plans to loosen the councils’ tight grip on the delivery of education.

In the document, the SNP criticises Scotland’s “one size fits all” education system, whereby all mainstream state schools barring one - Jordanhill School in Glasgow - are run by local authorities.

The party vows to “extend to individual schools responsibilities that currently sit solely with local authorities, allocate more resources directly to headteachers and enable them to take decisions based on local circumstances”.

The document also mentions creating “new educational regions to decentralise management and support”.

This is an edited version of an article in the 29 April edition of TESS. Subscribers can view the full story here. This week’s TESS magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here

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