David Cameron urged to help new parents

By Martin Graham

CAMPAIGNERS are calling on David Cameron to help other parents who face hardship after the birth of their children.

Scots parents are being forced back into the workplace before they are ready because state benefits are so mean.  

Mothers are entitled to take a year off after giving birth, receiving 90% of their salary for six weeks.

But after this the amount drops to just £125 per week for the next 33 weeks.

Politicians slammed by leading childcare expert

By Cara Sulieman

CHILD CARE expert Dr Penelope Leach has slammed politicians for making decisions about family issues they don’t fully understand.

Speaking to a packed tent at the Edinburgh Book Festival today (Tues), she said that the problem with the options available to parents today was that the policy makers have never experienced the problem themselves.

She said: “Hardly any politicians, academics or policy makers find it necessary to leave their own infants in the first few months in less than high quality child care.

“Quite a lot of them have no idea what it would be like to have no other choice.”

Stressed out teachers took 250 years off

By Oliver Farrimond

SCOTLAND’s beleaguered teachers took more almost 250 years’ worth of time off during the last two school years – due to STRESS.

New figures reveal the true extent of Scotland’s chaotic classrooms, with more than 3,000 teachers claiming days off due to excessive mental strain.

Since the beginning of 2007, almost 90,000 days have been lost, robbing pupils of valuable teaching time and Scottish schools of much-needed manpower.

A spokesman for Scotland’s biggest teachers union, the Educational Institute of Scotland, blamed large class sizes and a lack of support for the shocking figures.