Tories say teachers at ‘breaking point’ as mental health absences take toll

Scotland’s teachers are being pushed to “breaking point”, the Scottish Conservatives have said as figures revealed that almost 600,000 teaching days have been lost to mental health absences in the last five years.

Responses to freedom of information requests submitted by the Scottish Conservatives show that 592,272 teaching days have been lost to stress, anxiety, depression or other mental health issues since 2020-21.

This includes 142,071 days lost in 2024-25, during which 4,503 teaching staff were absent on mental health grounds.

The figures do not include the Western Isles which did not respond, as well as South Lanarkshire which could not provide the information correctly, and two other councils failed to provide complete data.

Scottish Conservative MSP Miles Briggs said that Scotland’s teachers are being pushed to “breaking point”.

He said: “These alarming figures point to a mental health crisis among Scotland’s teachers, who are being shamefully let down by the SNP government.

“The number of teachers off due to stress, anxiety, depression or burnout is deeply worrying – but also sadly predictable, given the relentless pressure they are working under.

“After almost two decades of SNP mismanagement, teachers and support staff are being pushed to breaking point because there are fewer of them and their working environment is often unsafe.

“It’s little wonder so many teachers are off sick when there’s an epidemic of classroom violence, which has been met with hand-wringing by the education secretary.

“Instead of brushing aside serious concerns about rising pupil violence, Jenny Gilruth must finally acknowledge the scale of the crisis and deliver the support teachers urgently need.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “In Scotland our councils employ teachers and therefore have duties to look after their workforce.

“To support Scotland’s councils in this endeavour, the Scottish Government has allocated more than £2 million to support the wellbeing of the education workforce.

“We have also just agreed another pay increase for Scotland’s teachers, meaning that classroom teachers now earn up to £54,000 per year.

“Reducing teacher class contact will help to alleviate pressures in Scotland’s schools on wellbeing – we are working at pace with Cosla to ensure we can deliver better working conditions for our teachers.”