Richard Bruton: No more offers for teachers

There will be no more offers made to secondary school teachers, Education Minister Richard Bruton has said.

On Saturday, the central executive of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) recommended to its members to reject the Government’s current proposal in relation to a dispute over pay, conditions, and the junior cycle.

Mr Bruton was asked on Newstalk if that was the Government’s final proposal in light of the ASTI’s recommendation on Saturday.

“Absolutely. That’s the final offer,” he said.

“They [the ASTI] are allowing it go to a ballot. There are very real benefits for teachers in this deal. It’s also giving teachers better access to permanent contracts.

“A lot of time was put into developing a set of proposals. I’m not going to interfere with any proposals.”

Meanwhile, the minister published a draft bill yesterday introducing a new parent and student charter.

If it becomes law, it will require every school to consult with parents and students, and publish and operate a parent and student charter.

The minister said that the expectations of citizens had changed and that education had to adapt in order to meet these new expectations.

“This [the proposed charter] moves away from what was an old-fashioned reactive and very legalistic and maybe centralised system to making sure you devolve to a local level, to a culture of dealing with issues locally and I think that everyone will acknowledge that this is the right direction to go in,” said Mr Bruton.

“I think best practice in every sector is built on informing, engaging, consulting, taking feedback, handling complaints swiftly, dealing with people in a respectful and responsible way, and avoiding things building up to where things become a major grievance that results in legalistic and a very adversarial approach to things.”