Primary class sizes among Europe's largest

PRIMARY school class sizes in Scotland are among the largest in Europe, according to a new study.

A survey by Eurydice, an organisation which monitors education performance across the European Union, shows that only England and the Republic of Ireland have more children in their primary classes.

In Scotland's state schools, the average primary class size is 23.9, against an EU average of 19.8.

England (26.2) and Ireland (24.2) have larger class sizes, while the other 19 countries surveyed all have fewer pupils in their primary school classrooms. The lowest class sizes are in Iceland, with an average of just 14.4 pupils per class.

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), the country's largest teaching union, responded to the report by urging local authorities to do more to bring class sizes down.

Ministers have pledged that class sizes should be no bigger than 30 in primary one to three, and a maximum of 33 between primary four and primary seven. They have also said that primary one class sizes will be no larger than 25 by 2007.

But Ronnie Smith, the EIS general-secretary, said he was concerned that money being given to councils by the Scottish Executive to reduce class sizes was not making it to the front line.

He said: "The education minister, Peter Peacock, has publicly stated that sufficient funding will be made available to all local authorities to allow them to meet, or even exceed, the planned class size cuts.

"Scotland's local authorities must play their part in meeting these commitments and they must start moving towards the targets for reductions in class sizes now."

He added: "At a time when we are assured extra funding is being provided to enable more teachers to be recruited, in some areas we hear of plans to cut education budgets and staffing.

"It makes no sense for money to be poured in at one end of our education system, only for it to leak out at the other end."

The Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association also voiced concerns the Executive might miss its target of reducing maths and English class sizes to 20 in the first two years of high school.

A spokeswoman for the Executive said ministers had made it clear to councils that they had a responsibility to bring class sizes down.

She said: "We're doing our bit by recruiting extra teachers, and last week we gave every council a target for the number of teachers they should have by 2007. Those numbers were carefully targeted to reduce class sizes and we expect that to happen."