No Asti recommendation on junior cycle vote

The 17,000 members of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (Asti) have not been recommended by their leadership to vote for or against a crucial junior cycle reform package.

The union’s 180-member central executive council (CEC) decided on Saturday to ballot the membership next month on the deal hammered out by officials with the Department of Education during the summer. But unlike the executive of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI), whose 10,000 second-level members are also in industrial dispute over earlier versions of the plan, it took no position on the vote.

At a special CEC meeting, a motion that it recommend members back the deal was rejected by 80 votes to 46.