Teacher unions plan third strike over junior cycle proposals

No resolution looks likely before Christmas in the teachers’ junior cycle reform dispute as unions plan a third strike early next year if proposed talks do not end in a resolution.

The leaders of both second-level teacher unions yesterday set Thursday, January 22, as the next date for a stoppage at 723 schools. Their 27,000 members’ first strike kept 340,000 students at home on December 2.

But while moves are in train to get the unions and Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan back talking, a further one-day strike is also now proposed. The executives of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (Asti) and Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) said such action would be taken “if necessary” on a date to be announced.

The unions also agreed, however, they are prepared to meet Pauric Travers with a view to facilitating constructive engagement that might help to resolve the impasse. Ms O’Sullivan wrote to him on Thursday, asking if he would see if grounds exist to reconvene talks under his chairmanship that collapsed last month.

At those talks, Ms O’Sullivan’s officials put forward her offer to retain State certification of the Junior Certificate. She is also willing to retain external assessment by the State Examinations Commission of final written exams worth 60% of marks in all subjects.

Her predecessor, Ruairi Quinn, had proposed final exams be marked by students’ own teachers. But Ms O’Sullivan still wants teachers to assess coursework by their own students, worth 40% of marks.

This remains the main sticking point, agreement on which was up to this week a pre-condition by the minister to any further talks. There were notably, however, no explicit pre-conditions to talks in statements from either side yesterday.

TUI president Gerry Quinn said ongoing feedback from members makes clear that their position has not changed. “Specifically, they are opposed to the proposed introduction of teachers assessing their own students and are gravely concerned by the lack of capacity of schools after several years of cutbacks to cope with the magnitude of the proposed changes,” he said.

Asti president Philip Irwin said teachers support many improvements, including increased use of project and portfolio work and a move away from an excessive reliance on terminal examination. “However, they want these externally assessed,” he said.

Ms O’Sullivan said another strike was unwarranted, unreasonable, and will unnecessarily disrupt students and their families. She said her officials will engage seriously with Mr Travers in the coming days and she hopes to see the same level of engagement from the unions.

But while the way may be clearing for talks to resume, privately, neither side expects enough progress to resolve the dispute and avert the strikes before early January at best.