Warning of ‘chaos’ over substitute teachers

TEACHING unions have warned of impending chaos in second-level schools as a result of plans by Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe to withdraw funding for the payment of substitutes employed by principals to cover for teachers absent on school business.

The Government is suspending substitution cover for teachers who bring students on field trips, to plays, other curricular events or to sports and extra-curricular activities from January.

In a letter to the minister, responding to his suggestion last week that teachers should provide unpaid supervision when colleagues are absent on such school business, the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) said he was essentially asking teachers to work for nothing for part of the week.