TEACHING unions in Scotland are "holding schools back" according to the country's most senior council official.
Rory Mair, the outgoing chief executive of local authority umbrella body Cosla, said the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) did not care about educational quality in Scotland.
Mr Mair also accused the Scottish Government of being obsessed with micro-management because they have set councils targets on teacher numbers.
He said: "If you have got a union that does not care at all about the quality of provision and only cares to be one thing a union might be which is an advocate of its members then I don't think, given what has happened with quality in education, that they can claim to be the defenders of that.
"Their policies about staff are one of the impediments to the way in which we make progress in education.
"We have spent far more time talking about teacher numbers than we have spent talking about the First Minister's wish to see inequalities driven out of education."
However, the EIS said, as Scotland's largest teaching union, it always acted in the best interests of education.
A spokesman said: "The EIS is duty bound to act in the best interests of young people in our schools as well as the teaching staff that we represent.
"To fail to fulfil any of these obligations to the best of our ability would be a dereliction of our duty."
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