A day of strike action by teachers in the Western Isles looks set to go ahead on Friday 3 February, with no end in sight to the pay dispute affecting Scottish schools.
The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) said they had reached the midway point in a rolling programme of regional strike days.
On Friday (27 January) EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley said, "Scotland's teachers have responded magnificently in recent weeks, supporting ongoing strike action in their tens of thousands right across the country.
“On strike days, schools have closed… with teachers on the picket lines and attending demonstrations and rallies right across Scotland.
"Teachers do not want to be there, and would much rather be in class working to support young people’s education – but, having been compelled to take strike action by the inaction of the Scottish Government and COSLA on pay, Scotland’s teachers are not going to back down."
Previous strike days saw early learning, childcare and primary schools throughout the Western Isles closed on Tuesday 10 January, together with ‘all-through’ schools in Tarbert and Castlebay.
The Nicolson Institute and Sgoil Lionacleit were closed during a second day of action on Wednesday 11 January.
There’s been further dissent on education resources as, in a separate development, local authority representative group COSLA reported ‘extreme disappointment’ with the Scottish Cabinet’s decision to make interventions in relation to minimum learning hours and pupil teacher ratio.
After a meeting in Edinburgh on Friday, council leaders said that the limited options facing local government as a result of the budget had been made worse by Scottish Government’s intentions around teacher numbers and the hours children spend in school.
In a joint statement COSLA spokespeople Katie Hagmann and Tony Buchanan said: “This is an unnecessary and unwanted attack and intervention on our democratic mandate as elected politicians in our own right.
“We are seeing potentially unworkable proposals foisted on us without any prior discussion or consultation with local government – proposals we will be seeking legal advice on.”