THOUSANDS of pupils from secondary schools across West Dunbartonshire will be hit by industrial action on Tuesday.

Five secondary schools will be shut to pupils as teachers from the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) take a day of action over plans to save money by cutting the number of promoted staff.

Members of the EIS will picket Clydebank High School, Dumbarton Academy, Our Lady and St Patrick's High School, St Peter the Apostle High School and Vale of Leven Academy. Staff from other unions will attend school as normal.

The action is being taken in protest at plans by West Dunbartonshire Council to cut the number of principal teachers in schools which unions say will damage education and add to workload.

However, the council argues the practice is widespread across Scotland and will result in no reduction in teaching time.

Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS, said: "Secondary teachers in West Dunbartonshire are making a stand in opposition to cuts that will have a long-term damaging impact on education provision in all the council's secondary schools.

"This management restructuring of secondary schools is, in reality, a financially driven cut that will have serious implications for pupils and teachers.

"The move would result in a loss of specialist leadership in subject departments, and a diminution of the support available to teachers and pupils alike."

A council spokeswoman apologised to pupils and parents over the disruption and said the council was doing "everything we can" to find a solution.

She said: "We met with senior union officials three days ago to try to avoid the need for strike action and presented a package of nine new measures that would address the issue of workload at our secondary schools.

"We also offered to work with the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service to resolve this through negotiation. Unfortunately, EIS was unwilling to postpone the strike action.

"It is important to highlight that faculty structures exist in most councils in Scotland and that the unions have never previously taken industrial action in opposition to them.

"Our own carefully-considered structure is more generous in terms of school management posts than many. The management restructure will result in no reduction in teachers, no reduction in teaching time and no reduction in management time."

The EIS has asked the council's ruling Labour group to agree to a review if its decision and to enter into constructive talks with the EIS local association to prevent the dispute escalating.

The proposals will mean schools no longer having a dedicated principal teacher in charge of every subject. Instead, subjects will be grouped together in so-called faculties with one principal teacher in charge.

The move to called faculties has been an issue in councils across Scotland over the past few years with some local authorities merging subject areas such as history, geography and English.

Teaching unions argue the move can see subject groupings which bear no relationship to each resulting in departments with faculty heads who have no understanding of the subjects they are in charge of.