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Voters go to the polls in the 2026 Scottish Parliament election a week today.

91���� has already set out what key groups in education, including primary and secondary school leaders, want to hear from their elected representatives after 7 May.

But what have the parties said about education themselves?

Here, we look at the manifestos of the political parties in Scotland most likely to win seats next week, in order of how much representation they had in the previous parliamentary session.

Here are six big promises from each of the six manifestos:

SNP

• The has proposed a “welcome to school bag” for all Primary 1s, akin to the baby box offered to new parents since 2017, with “essential items” including stationery, a water bottle and books.
• Take forward reforms to give headteachers a “greater say” in what happens in schools.
• “Review the provision of modern languages in schools” to help pupils “learn a new language to ensure Scotland can remain connected with our European neighbours”.
• “Take the steps necessary to at least maintain pupil-teacher ratios.”
• Put existing guidance “on a statutory footing to ensure Scotland’s classrooms are phone-free”.
• On additional support needs (ASN), “provide access for every school in Scotland to behaviour specialist teachers”.

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Conservatives

• The would hold a national review on the mainstreaming of pupils with ASN.
• Give schools the ability to opt out of local authority control and become grant-aided schools, like Jordanhill School in Glasgow.
• Abolish Education Scotland, as a means to “prevent the issuing of vague guidance and free up resources that would be better deployed raising school standards”.
• “Return to knowledge-based learning with a new Curriculum for Aspiration.”
• Reverse the application of business rates and VAT to independent schools.
• Set up “parent panels to oversee the content their children are taught on socially contentious issues such as sex education”.

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Labour

• The party would introduce breakfast clubs in all primary schools, as well as creating “family network hubs” in primary schools, based on the Sure Start programme in England.
• Make money from the Pupil Equity Fund “permanent”.
• Ban mobile phones in classrooms and back a UK-wide ban on social media for under-16s.
• Establish an “enforceable national behaviour charter” that would “define pupils’ rights and responsibilities and set out clear escalating consequences, including exclusion”.
• Start a national attendance register to provide better data on absence and allow targeted interventions.
• Scrap the Scottish National Standardised Assessments in favour of “standardised, sample-based testing and international benchmarking”.

Greens

• The would raise the school starting age to 7 and introduce a “play-based kindergarten stage” for younger children.
• End homework for primary-aged children.
• “Scrap high-stakes exams as much as possible.”
• Abolish P1-S3 Scottish National Standardised Assessments, bringing back the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy.
• “End the routine use of national inspections and develop a new model of peer review and self-evaluation for teachers.”
• Make ASN teaching a promoted post to attract more teachers.

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Liberal Democrats

• The would recruit 2,000 pupil support assistants as part of a school workforce strategy, to boost and standardise the careers of PSAs.
• Expand extracurricular activities, such as music, sport, drama, debating and entrepreneurship, starting by piloting a free entitlement for disadvantaged children.
• “Inflation-proof” the Pupil Equity Fund and legislate to “make it a permanent feature”.
• Extend the amount of teacher education that can be done remotely to help people in remote, island and rural areas.
• Reform the Insight benchmarking system to promote “parity of esteem between academic and non-academic qualifications and awards”.
• Place a “young carers’ lead” in every school to “provide practical support” for young carers.

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Reform

• The party would “reboot the Curriculum for Excellence by giving it a knowledge-based curriculum at its core”.
• “Restore rigorous examination as the primary method of assessment combined with standardised testing.”
• Reintroduce the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy and “rejoin all international education surveys”.
• “Give discretion back to headteachers over their school budgets and staff recruitment”, and back headteachers in “maintaining discipline in the classroom by using exclusion as an essential tool”.
• Ban mobile phones in classrooms.
• Allow all secondary schools to apply for a “self-governance model” like that of Jordanhill School.

In-person voting for the Scottish Parliament election will take place from 7am to 10pm on Thursday 7 May.

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