Student sports and activities to suffer

Sports and other activities may suffer at some second-level schools that have managed to remain open amid industrial action by teachers.

Ahead of today’s second one-day strike for equal pay for recently-qualified teachers, 17,500 members of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) stopped doing supervision and substitution yesterday at over 500 schools.

Around 400 of them were forced to close because their boards of management did not have staff in place to take on those duties.

But for dozens with ASTI members that managed to get supervision rosters covered, difficulties finding non-ASTI substitutes could prevent them from releasing staff to accompany students on trips connected to their courses, sports or other extra-curricular activities.

Around 30 community and comprehensive schools closed yesterday but about 60 opened with the help of non-ASTI teachers, student teachers, special needs assistants or others.

Eileen Salmon, general secretary of the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools, said many of those that have opened are not so confident about providing substitution cover.

“They might have to call a halt to activities at short notice because they don’t have access to non-ASTI substitutes,” she said.

Around 40-plus community colleges run by Education and Training Boards are due to be shut by today’s ASTI strike, but all but seven were open yesterday.

At many schools affected by the ASTI action, teachers had empty classrooms as students were told not to attend because boards of management were unable to provide supervision during breaks and other periods.

Irish Second-level Students’ Union (ISSU) president Jane M Hayes Nally, a fifth-year student at an ASTI school in Co Cork, said students are not concerned with the details of the dispute but simply want to see disruption of classes ended.

“Before mid-term it was one day off, now schools are closing and there is an inequality for the students at schools with ASTI teachers. Students are becoming more anxious,” she said.

The ISSU president said there was a huge amount of stress for students due to complete Junior and Leaving Certificate projects and coursework in certain subjects, because the work has to be done in class.

ASTI president Ed Byrne said the Government had reneged on part of the Haddington Road Agreement which his members stuck to rigidly, including three years of unpaid supervision and substitution.

“Our members turned up for work today. If the Government wants to link supervision and substitution to Croke Park hours, they would have done so in one of those agreements, but they didn’t,” he told Today FM.

But Education Minister Richard Bruton said the withdrawal of supervision and substitution was a “bad mistake” that should not have happened, saying the union did not allow its principals to co-operate with finding alternative solutions to keep schools open.

“They have made it virtually impossible for schools to open by the decision of the ASTI itself,” he said.