“DONE-IN” teachers could consider strikes if the Scottish government and councils do not agree to a ban on classes with more than 20 pupils, the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS) warned today.

Delegates at the teaching union’s annual general meeting overwhelmingly voted to launch a “20:20 Vision” campaign. It demands a reduction of the maximum class size from 33 to 20 and of contact time from 22.25 hours a week to 20.

EIS council member Andrew Fullwood told delegates that the demand was “the next step in the Value Education, Value Teachers campaign,” through which Scottish teachers recently won a substantial pay rise after preparing for a strike ballot.

“Time and time again you’ve heard people talk about how their workload gets out of hand,” Mr Fullwood told the hall. “This isn’t a motion full of empty rhetoric, this a real demand and it has to be a real campaign going forward.

“If it’s good enough for kids in the private schools, if it’s good enough for the rich kids, it’s good enough for our kids.

“Give us the chance to prove it works.”

He said that the union was not currently planning to strike over the issue, but that “at the end of the day we may need to take action.”

EIS council member Allan Crosbie also concurred by saying that strikes were not currently on the cards. But he said teachers would not win “by asking nicely” and had to “make demands” and be prepared to follow through with industrial action if employers and the government did not negotiate seriously over the issue.

The average primary school class size in Scotland was 23.5 in both 2017 and 2016, up from 22.7 in 2011. Across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, the average primary school class had 21 students in 2016. Class size data for secondary schools is not collected in Scotland.

The motion passed at EIS AGM meant that another motion, which made a less radical demand of a class size maximum of 25, fell off the agenda. The union will now demand that teachers are allocated 10 hours of correction and preparation time every week.

Delegates also supported an amendment saying that the union should “submit these improvements to conditions as a key demand” in negotiations with government and councils “as soon as possible.”

South Lanarkshire delegate Jennifer Gaffney said in the debate: “The reality is, we are done-in. A teacher with full teaching commitment has made more decisions in one day than a brain surgeon.”