South Ayrshire Council denies claims that pupils within it’s schools are getting less education time than other councils.

Statistics gathered by independant think tank, Reform Scotland put South Ayrshire Council as the third lowest council where children have contact with teachers.

The group asked every council how many hours teachers spent with children in primary and secondary school, not including breaks.

According to their stats, South Ayrshire Council children spent 877.5 hours in primary school with a teacher and 975 hours in high school.

Moray Council came back with the lowest hours of 851 for contact with primary kids.

Midlothian Council responded with the lowest for secondary school children with 855 hours.

South Ayrshire Council hit back at these claims stating there had been a miscalculation in the number of hours.

A spokesperson said: “South Ayrshire Council primary schools have 950 hours contact per year and secondary schools have 1,045 which is in line with most authorities. “We are currently looking into why different data was sent to Reform Scotland and will contact them with the correct information.” The findings showed that the majority of councils had primary children spending 950 hours with a teacher and 1,045 for secondary kids.

South Ayrshire Council insist that their schools are in line with the rest of the other councils.

Regulations state that local authority schools must be open for 190 days per year, however there is no minimum number of teacher contact hours and the law does not define the length and structure of a school day, week or year.

It is the varience in hours in education time that Reform Scotland wanted to highlight with their findings.

Reform Scotland’s Research Director Alison Payne said: “We were surprised by the huge variation in hours exposed by our findings.

“We do not object to the variation in hours per se, because we believe that local authorities, and indeed individual schools, should have more control over their operation.

“However, we strongly object to the lack of transparency which appears to prevent parents from gaining full knowledge of this situation.”