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.