An amendment to delay any industrial action until December was defeated after a three-hour debate at the annual general meeting of the Educational Institute of Scotland in Dundee.

Bill Ramsay proposed the move for immediate industrial action on behalf of EIS branches from Dumfries and Galloway, Inverclyde, South Lanarkshire, Aberdeen, Shetland and West Dunbartonshire.

"This shows that the Institute cares about post-16 education and wants to see good quality education in place and properly resourced," he said after the vote.

"It is time for the Scottish Office to take post-16 education seriously and fund it properly. The Scottish Office should now take into account the chronic under-funding in the Higher Still programme.

"The government should sit up and take note of what has occurred here today."

Darren McDonald, a member of the Institute's executive who had argued for the delay, said it was clear that the delegates had concerns that the Higher Still must not be implemented in an under-resourced way.

"The Institute remains committed to Higher Still, but the issues are resources and teachers' materials. There is a strong view in the hall that the teaching profession is not adequately prepared for the implementation of Higher Still."

There have also been worries raised about the Higher reforms requiring "multi-level teaching", in which pupils in the same class could be studying different courses within a subject.

The Scottish Secondary Teachers Association, a smaller teaching union, has already put pressure on the Government by voting by nine to one in support of a boycott of the so-called "Higher Still" reforms.