Teachers may be told to snub English course

English teachers at nearly 400 secondary schools could be told not to teach the new junior cycle curriculum under an emergency proposal that might reach their union conference floor today.

Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) and Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) members are already on industrial action, banning them from taking part in training or planning for Education Minister Ruairi Quinn’s Junior Cycle Student Award (JCSA).

But they have not been directed not to deliver the new course in English, the first subject in which a new curriculum is to be taught from next September for students starting first year.

ASTI standing committee member Fintan O’Mahony wants an emergency motion put to the union’s convention in Wexford, which would direct that the new English course not be taught.

It is also to be the first subject in which teachers would have to assess their own students for the JCSA, a practice opposed by ASTI and TUI, although not until 2016.

“English teachers, all teachers, would be better off knowing the ASTI would be backing them to the hilt in refusing to teach the course,” he said.

Mr O’Mahony said that once they start teaching the revised curriculum they would be assessing their own students before they know it.

After a meeting of ASTI officers last night, the 23-member standing committee was expected to meet this morning to consider whether the proposal be debated.

But they could deem the issue already dealt with by the union’s senior decision-making bodies and not put the motion to the 500 delegates, in which event an explanation would likely be set out in a private session.

Any refusal to teach the curriculum would be in breach of the 1998 Education Act and, even if backed by ASTI’s full 17,000 membership in any ballot approved today, would effectively amount to a full strike. But a proposal from the standing committee in February that the ballot which mandated the current industrial action should include possible strike action was rejected by the 180-member central executive council.

The proposal came at the end of almost three hours’ debate in which motions in support of ASTI’s campaign opposing the marking of students by their own teachers were passed.

The issue also dominated proceedings at TUI congress in Kilkenny, where Mr Quinn earlier got a relatively polite reception.

It contrasted with strong abuse he received from some ASTI delegates on Tuesday, for which their own general secretary Pat King sharply criticised them yesterday.

He also revealed he was subjected to death threats on a website used by ASTI members late last year.