Jan O’Sullivan to consider new proposals in Junior Cert dispute

Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan said she expects to receive proposals to try and resolve the impasse with teaching unions over reform of the Junior Certificate within the coming weeks.

Ms O’Sullivan said she believed the only way the dispute with the ASTI and the TUI over Junior Certificate reform can be resolved is through dialogue rather than further industrial action by teachers.

“I believe that settling something like this has to be done by talking, not by strikes,” she said at the launch of a science initiative for girls in Cork.

“I think any more strikes would be very damaging to the young people concerned in particular. The situation we are in now is that the unions and myself have agreed to consider proposals that independent chairman Dr Padraig Travers has put forward.

“We will then look at his proposals and they will look at them and I hope we will be back at the table then. The intention is that these are not binding proposals - they are the basis for discussion so I would expect that we would move to that phase as soon as possible,” she said.

Ms O’Sullivan said she hadn’t received any timetable from Dr Travers, but she understood from contact that her department officials had with him that the proposals are nearly completed.