Teachers in talks stalemate over junior cycle reform

A further stalemate looks likely as talks resume today on proposals to resolve the teachers’ dispute over junior cycle reform.

The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) and Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) are not happy with some elements of proposals put forward last week by Pauric Travers, who has chaired 33 hours of talks between them and the Department of Education since November.

He suggested that school-based assessment not be included in the State-certified element of examination at the end of the junior cycle, as a compromise in the dispute over who should mark students for the Junior Certificate.

Instead, two pieces of course work, in second year and third year, would form part of a Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement, also incorporating results in final written exams set and marked by the State Examinations Commission, as well as achievement on any short courses a student has taken and other learning activities.

Mr Travers had set today as the deadline for acceptance or rejection of his proposals, which Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan said on Friday she is willing to accept.

Although the proposals have removed a requirement for teachers to mark their own students for State certification, ASTI president Philip Irwin said the unions do not see the proposals as a basis for agreement. “We are willing to look at it in terms of what it is, that is a draft agreement. We had asked for a range of proposals and it couldn’t be other than a starting point,” he said.

The proposal includes a suggestion that Ms O’Sullivan delay implementing a new junior science cycle curriculum to September 2016, and that unions would suspend their industrial action.

The ASTI and TUI executives withdrew co-operation with the reforms last April, and have sanctioned a third day of strike on the issue.

The December strike by 27,000 second-level teachers contributed to the number of work days lost to industrial action last year being almost treble the 2013 figure.

CSO figures released yesterday show that 44,015 days were lost, almost 24,000 of them in the education sector, making up 54% of the total. The 20,245 days lost outside of education were still much higher than the previous year’s total of 14,965.

The number of days lost last year was the highest since 2009 when there were 329,593, largely due to strikes across the public sector. Eleven disputes in as many firms or workplaces, taken by 31,665 workers, account for the days lost in 2014.