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.

The TUI is recommending the deal be accepted, its president Gerry Quinn saying on Friday that changes to the plans address teacher concerns about retaining the integrity of assessment at the end of junior cycle. While the Asti has not gone so far, the absence of a recommendation against the proposals from either union may be considered quite positive by Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan, in light of the political as well as educational ramifications if the row were to extend into another school year.

The 27,000 second-level teachers withdrew from training on new curriculum and assessments in April 2014, and twice closed more than 700 schools with strikes in the past year. The deal would still see students assessed by their own teachers in second and third years but marks would no longer count towards the Junior Certificate, as previously proposed in plans first unveiled by Ms O’Sullivan’s predecessor Ruairi Quinn almost three years ago.

Asti president Máire G Ní Chiarba said it is now up to teachers to examine the proposals to decide if they are a basis to begin implementing the revised junior cycle.

“The junior cycle campaign demonstrates the power of a united and persistent teaching profession standing up for education,” she said.

Asti’s 180-member CEC decided to recommend members reject the Lansdowne Road public service pay deal, matching the position of TUI leaders ahead of a ballot of its members on the same issue.