Second teachers' union votes unanimously for potential industrial action over Leaving Cert reforms

Delegates at  the Teachers' Union of Ireland  conference said the infrastructure necessary to support the changes were currently insufficient and would not be ready in time for when the new system goes live. Picture: Patrick Browne

A second teachers’ union has voted unanimously to consider industrial action should the implementation of major senior cycle reform proceed as planned next September.

Introducing the motion of consequence at the Teacher's Union of Ireland’s annual congress in Wexford, delegates argued the infrastructure necessary to support the changes were currently insufficient and would not be ready in time for when the new system goes live.

The new reforms, the most significant seen to the Leaving Cert schedule in more than a century, will see a fundamental move in emphasis away from written exams, with a minimum of 40% of marks for relevant subjects to come from project work.

Criticisms of the reforms include they will exacerbate the advantages of better-funded schools, and will leave assessments vulnerable to the threat of generative AI, for which teachers have argued there are no ethical nor practical guidelines in place.

After a 10-minute debate, the motion passed unanimously among delegates, meaning both the ASTI and TUI have now voted for potential industrial action to avert the changes being introduced in five months' time.

Speaking to media at the same time the motion was being debated, minister for education Helen McEntee stressed she believed her department was in “lockstep” with the unions “in terms of the fact that there needs to be change to the Leaving Cert”.

She said her current “intensive” engagement with the unions regarding the pending reforms amounted to seeing “what more I can do to support them”.

Regarding the possibility of industrial action, she said: “I don’t see there should be a need to get to that point."

She acknowledged, however, that no comprehensive guidance has been issued in terms of AI, adding guidance would be issued “in the coming months”, a statement likely to be met with unhappy responses from the gathered teachers, who had repeatedly expressed their unhappiness with the tardiness of the provision of those guidelines across the two days of their congress.