The producers of the BBC Scotland programme Holyrood Live recently decided to produce a report card, on a scale of 1-10, on the achievements of the Scottish Executive during its first four-year term of office.
A representative from the Scottish Federation of Small Businesses was asked to mark the Executive’s card on its economic performance, while a representative of the BMA was asked to judge its achievements in health care.
Awarding a mark of seven out of 10 to the Executive for its performance in the field of education, the general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland confined his assessment to what has happened in our schools. He excluded from his consideration the Executive’s performance in relation to further and higher education.
This was an amazing omission. During the Executive’s first term, scores of EIS members in the colleges were declared redundant, employer-dominated boards of management brought disciplinary allegations against a number of EIS elected officials and the national president of the EIS College Lecturers’ Association was hounded out of his job.
I do not know how members of the EIS University Lecturers’ Association will feel about this, but I suspect that EIS members in the colleges will be appalled at their general secretary’s lack of interest in their plight.
Joe Eyre
Old Castle Road
Glasgow
