VIDEO: Teachers’ unions reject second vote on exam plans

Unions are refusing to re-ballot members on revised junior cycle proposals as they force students to stay at home from 720 second-level schools today and threaten a third strike.

Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan’s department will save about €4.8m in docked pay as 27,000 members of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) and Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) picket schools. Around 340,000 students are being disrupted for the second time in seven weeks in the ongoing dispute over junior cycle reforms.

Union leaders are standing firm in their opposition to the minister’s requirement that teachers assess their own students for coursework in a revised exam system.