MINISTERS are facing mounting pressure to scrap a "crazy" policy of fining councils millions of pounds for missing targets on teacher numbers.
Local authority sources said abandoning the targets - and the council tax freeze - would top discussions with Finance Minister John Swinney before the Scottish Budget next week.
The call to scrap the policy came after new figures showed one third of Scottish councils are facing financial penalties because they missed targets on teacher numbers.
Ten councils have fewer teachers than they did last year despite signing up to an SNP pledge to keep numbers the same - including Aberdeen, Argyll and Bute, Glasgow, Moray, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Scottish Borders and Stirling.
A spokesman for council umbrella body Cosla said the fines would penalise councils even though there was no suggestion education had suffered as a result.
He said: "What has failed is a crazy, simplistic, ill thought through policy. Not hitting an arbitrary figure on a random day cannot be the way forward for education in Scotland.
“It is becoming increasingly embarrassing that we continue to focus so hard on delivering a target which is so educationally irrelevant."
John Stodter, general secretary of the Association of Directors of Education Scotland, also argued for a change in policy.
He said: "The current problem is that there is no relationship between the education budget a council gets and what it actually costs to run the service.
"If we think teacher staffing levels are important then a better way to achieve that would be a standard national staffing formula for schools, properly funded by the Scottish Government."
Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said the union backed a minimum staffing standard for schools.
He said: "Teacher numbers have fallen in a number of local authority areas in breach of individual agreements and this confirms the need for a nationally agreed minimum staffing standard to ensure consistent levels of provision across Scotland."
The controversy has arisen after the Scottish Government's 2015/16 Budget included an extra £10 million to maintain teacher numbers at existing levels.
Mr Swinney made the money available on a council by council basis, but warned any failure to deliver would result in a claw back of funding.
A number of rural councils have already complained the policy is unfair because they are being penalised for being unable to fill advertised vacancies because of a shortage of applicants. Others have warned they could make up the shortfall by cutting even more teachers.
Because other councils increased the number of teachers they employ overall teacher numbers in Scotland dropped by just three this year to 50,717.
But class sizes got bigger, moving from 23.3 to 23.4 between 2014 and 2015 and now at their highest level since the SNP came to power.
Average class sizes in the key first three years of primary school have stayed the same as last year.
Pupil teacher ratios have remained the same at 13.7 - but this is still the largest figure since the SNP came to power.
Angela Constance, the Education Secretary, said agreements with councils had ensured overall numbers of teachers had been maintained.
She said: "Thanks to the action we have taken to secure agreements with every local authority... the number of teachers and the pupil teacher ratio in our schools have been maintained at last year’s levels despite an increase in the number of pupils.
"We have broadly maintained class sizes since last year and the number of P1 pupils in classes of 26 or more is down by a massive 96 per cent since 2007."
Liz Smith, young people spokeswoman for the Scottish Conservative Party, said the government's record on teacher numbers was "in tatters".
She said: "The SNP made a very specific pledge to maintain teacher numbers but, yet again, the published statistics prove those numbers are falling."
Iain Gray, Scottish Labour's opportunity spokesman, said no progress had been made on reducing class sizes or increasing teacher numbers.
And Liam McArthur, education spokesman for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, added: "SNP ministers' rigid approach to teacher numbers and teaching hours is only likely to make matters worse because it removes any flexibility for councils to respond to the needs of pupils, parents and teachers."
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