Teacher strike looms over unruly pupil aid

HUNDREDS of schools could be closed down by a teachers’ strike if Education Minister Mary Hanafin does not extend supports to schools seeking help to deal with unruly students.

The Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) will ballot its 9,000 members working in more than 350 second-level schools on the measure after a motion passed at its annual congress in Wexford last night.

It called for a one-day strike in all second-level schools and a national demonstration if the minister does not immediately agree to provide a behaviour support room for all schools that sought the facility.

TUI members risk foregoing pay increases under the current national wage deal, which bans industrial action, if the move is cleared, but officials said it reflects the frustration felt in classrooms around the country.

It also places pressure on Ms Hanafin to make the National Behaviour Support Service available to all 124 schools which requested it before its roll-out in the past school year.

Only 50 of them are receiving support, with 36 having a behaviour support classroom set up for the worst-behaved students. They are given counselling and anger management to address their problems with the aim of allowing them to return to normal classes with their peers.

One TUI member said studies showed that one-third of students at the north Dublin school where she works suffer from social and emotional behavioural difficulties, but their application for help from the support service was turned down.

“Despite best efforts of management and staff, there is an unacceptable level of indiscipline in the school. We bring more than 20 students to the board every year for suspensions of more than 21 days,” she said.

“We couldn’t understand how it [the school] was denied the behaviour support service,” she said.

TUI assistant general secretary Declan Glynn said the extra €20 million to extend the behaviour support classrooms to the other 88 schools which had sought them is peanuts within the Department of Education’s € 9bn budget. Schools with these units are given two extra teachers, a €10,000 grant to refurbish a room and € €25,000 for specialist services.

“This motion shows that discipline is the biggest concern among second level teachers, bigger than pay or anything else,” he said.

“Nearly every Scottish second level school has these services automatically, they should be in every disadvantaged school here because they are more likely to have behaviour problems,” Mr Glynn said.

Mr Glynn said a proper support service could also result in fewer suspensions or expulsions, even though parents have expressed concern about changes to the law making it easier for schools to take such action from next autumn.

The support service was set up in 2006 following the report of the taskforce on student behaviour in second-level schools chaired by Dr Maeve Martin from NUI Maynooth. The motion passed by 400 delegates last night demands that other key recommendations of the Martin report be implemented.

These include training for teachers in relation to student behaviour, extra staff for disadvantaged schools, more free time for year heads to provide pastoral care and behaviour support.