A CARD vote was needed to resolve a call from an Aberdeen elder for action on disruptive pupils. Alex Mackay, a former teacher, suggested a large number of pupils go to school determined to do absolutely nothing.

It was not just their fellow pupils, particularly the less able, who suffered, Mr Mackay said. “Teachers are put under a great deal of stress. Very few now continue to the age of 65. I didn’t. I had a heart attack first, luckily not a very serious one.”

He prevailed by 183 votes to 139.

* The assembly threw out a call for an investigation into social divisions from the Rev Robert Anderson of Blackburn in West Lothian, who said “a privileged system of private schools” was creating second class education in the state sector”.

* The Church is to make representations to Sam Galbraith, the new Education Minister, on the survival of rural schools. “Educational reasons must take precedence over economic considerations,” the assembly was told.