Scotland's largest teaching unions has warned that changes in Scottish schools have caused an increased workload and stress for teachers.

The Educational Institute of Scotland said the problem of workload was the biggest single problem facing education in Scotland.

In an effort to prove its case, the EIS has commissioned the Scottish Council for Research in Education to conduct a poll of 3,000 teachers.

The union intends to present its findings to the McCrone Committee, which this month started examining the future shape of teachers' pay and contracts.

The EIS has warned teachers would judge the McCrone Committee a failure unless it made a difference on workloads.

It said there were two possible solutions - control the demands being made of teachers or hire more of them.

General secretary Ronnie Smith said: "There is scarcely a teacher - or member of a teacher's family - who will not declare that workload is the single greatest problem facing the teaching profession today.

'Huge change'

"The problems have grown worse in recent years because of the pace of change affecting schools at all levels.

"The five to 14 programme has still not bedded in and the individual teacher is having to bear the brunt of a huge change which, in parts, has been so ill-thought through and resourced that whole areas of the programme are now having to be redesigned and rewritten.

"Teachers in secondary schools are signalling clearly that the first year of Higher Still is far from trouble free, imposing substantial new burdens on teachers and their families at the same time as teachers are preparing for the next stages of the Higher Still programme due for implementation in August 2000."

The McCrone Inquiry - headed by retired civil servant Professor Gavin McCrone - will produce a consultation document and will hear a wide range of views before making its recommendations.

It was set up by the Scottish Executive after teachers and their local authority employers, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla), failed to agree on changes to pay and conditions.