The Scottish Government must provide more resource to support vulnerable children as specialist teacher numbers have dropped over the last decade, a children’s coalition has said.
The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition (SCSC), an alliance of leading providers of specialist care and education for vulnerable children and young people, has raised concerns about cuts to specialist support for youngsters with additional support needs (ASN).
Scottish Government figures show the number of ASN teachers rose from 2,837 in 2024 to 2,864 in 2025.
However, over the past decade the number of specialist ASN teachers has dropped from 3,038 in 2015.
The SCSC has raised concerns over the drop as the number of pupils with ASN has reached a record high – now amounting to 43% of the pupil population.
In 2015, each ASN teacher supported the equivalent of 50 pupils, but by 2025 this figure had risen to 105.
A spokesperson for the SCSC said: “It is vital that those with ASN get the care and support they need, and we urge all political parties to make this a central platform of their election campaigns.
“While we also support the presumption of mainstreaming, which means that all children and young people are educated in a mainstream educational environment unless exceptional circumstances apply, it is clearly difficult to see how this is functioning in reality, given the fall in specialist support and increase in the number of those with ASN.
“The next Scottish government and local authorities need to greatly increase resources to expand access to the likes of specialist ASN teachers, educational psychologists, and classroom assistants.
“Without this investment, we risk a lost generation of children with ASN missing out on the care and support they need, when they need it.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “All staff in schools support children with ASN – not just specialist staff – and all teachers already undertake ASN training during initial teacher education. We have 16,908 pupil support assistants in Scotland in 2025 – an increase of over 1,600 since 2020.
“The Scottish Government is providing £186.5 million to local authorities in 2025-26 to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels and maximise the number of teaching posts available, and a further £28 million this year to support the ASN workforce.
“This is in addition to record spend of almost £1.1 billion by local authorities on ASN in 2024-25 – the latest available figures.
“Recommendations from a rapid review of additional support for learning (ASL) provision published earlier this month will aid the response to the shifting landscape in ASN – including how the pandemic has impacted ASL in schools, and the increase in percentage of pupils identified.”
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