MORE than one million teaching days have been lost to illness in Scotland’s schools over the past three years, new figures show.

Data on teacher sickness in primary and secondary schools has also revealed the 343,000 days lost last year was a three-year high, and a significant increase from the previous year.

It means the average teacher has 6.85 absences a year, compared to 6.52 last year, while the rates vary drastically between different councils.

It comes as teacher numbers fell for a ninth successive year, with 4383 fewer than when the SNP came to power in 2007.

Schools have also been stretched as they introduce the Curriculum for Excellence and its associated exams and internal assessments.

The Scottish Conservatives, who collected the figures, said teachers needed more support to ensure they were less likely to succumb to illnesses.

In particular they called for extra support for stress-related illnesses with a detailed breakdown of the figures showing that in Glasgow more than a fifth of absences were for “psychological” reasons last year.

In Edinburgh stress and similar conditions accounted for 18.5 per cent of absences and in North Lanarkshire stress was the cause of a third of sick days in 2014/15. That figure increased to more than 40 per cent in Perth and Kinross.

Liz Smith, the Scottish Conservatives young person spokeswoman, said: "Teachers do a fantastic job right across the country, sometimes under very difficult circumstances, but it’s clearly a concern that the number of sick days are on the rise and we need to find out why that is.

“The Scottish Government needs to help local authorities do more to help staff where necessary and hopefully get this statistic down for next year.

“It’s also very concerning to see stress feature so commonly on the list of reasons for absence. The SNP has made a series of promises on teacher numbers and class sizes over the years and these are now in tatters - that can only make life more difficult for those tasked with teaching our youngsters.”

The number of sick days rose from 321,726 in 2013/14 to 343,330 in 2014/15. Over three years the total was 1,004,138.