By any objective standard, the proposed National Agreement would appear to be a good deal for teachers. A package which delivers a salary increase of 18 per cent over a 33-month period - allied to a generous package of tax cuts - should make a real difference to the average teacher.
Despite this, there appears to be little enthusiasm from the rank and file. The Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) has decided to put the proposed agreement to a members' ballot without a recommendation. The Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI) walked away from the negotiating table. Only the INTO, it seems, can afford to trumpet the proposed deal - but only after rank-and-file members were reassured that there was no question of "performance-related pay".
So, why is there such little enthusiasm for what appears to be a good deal? Pay is certainly part of the story: teachers have looked on enviously at the very generous packages agreed for both the nurses and the gardai when they flexed their industrial muscle. But there are other factors: critically, a general sense of grievance among the teaching profession which relates to their place and standing in today's society.
It is difficult to define precisely what is fuelling this sense of grievance. Some of it reflects the manner in which the status of teachers has changed. A decade ago teaching was a high-status job with relatively good pay and an enviable level of job security. Today, while the job retains a good status in society, the economic standing of teachers vis-a-vis other workers has changed radically. One teacher, in a north Co Dublin school, recalls how this came home to him forcefully at a recent parents/teachers meeting. "Ten years ago, there was a chasm between the well-educated teacher and the parent, who might have left school at Leaving Cert. Today, the same parents are often every bit as well educated as us but, for the most part, drive better cars and have more disposable income."
The change in the social standing of teachers has come just as the demands being made on them have increased. There has been a plethora of curriculum and course changes, as the classroom seeks to reflect what is happening in the outside world.
"Every time a new social problem is identified or highlighted, a new programme or course is added to our workload. We are, increasingly, being asked to become a mixture of teachers, psychologists and social workers," complains one primary teacher.
If the demands in the classroom have become more intense, there has also been a new form of external pressure: the increasing clamour for more teacher accountability.
While the need for public accountability is now accepted by most sectors, teachers have been very defensive in their approach. Last year, the ASTI congress reaffirmed its long-standing policy that its members do not have to teach in front of a Department of Education inspector. The TUI congress, meanwhile, railed against its own executive which had supported a pilot project in Whole School Evaluation, the very mild form of school inspection which will be introduced shortly.
All of these factors - concerns about pay, the changing status of the job and the unwelcome push for accountability - created a very difficult backdrop for the three teachers' unions in the run-in to talks on a new national agreement. But when it emerged that the talks would also consider some form of performance measurement for teachers, these difficulties were compounded.
The full-time officials in each of the three teachers' unions knew there was nothing to worry about in performance measurement; teachers were only being asked to participate in school development planning. Senator Joe O'Toole (INTO), Charlie Lennon (ASTI) and Jim Dorney (TUI) have all been measured and far-seeing in their approach. But there were others in the TUI and the ASTI who portrayed this as a demand for UK-style performance-related pay. And it was this group who set the agenda.
The executive of the ASTI voted to leave congress and walk away from the negotiations lest they be party to any agreement on performance-related pay. To their credit, the INTO and the TUI remained at the table, but both unions have had to counter the argument from their members that the national agreement is a slippery slope for teachers.
In fact, the section on "Modernisation in the Education Sector" in the proposed deal underpins what has already been agreed as part of the Education Act. Schools are obliged to take part in a school development process which will be reviewed both internally and externally (by the Department of Education) to ensure that objectives are being met. Every school is obliged through this process "to set effective and realistic objectives for building on its strengths and addressing its weaknesses".
By any measure, these are mild proposals which scarcely justify the howls of anguish from some teachers.
Critically, the emphasis is on the totality of the school and how it is performing rather than on the individual teacher. The Irish education system is still a very long way from performance-related pay or anything remotely like it.
For all that, the fractious nature of the debate among teachers on the new pay deal tells us much about the mood of the profession today.
The unions may have secured a very good pay deal, the Government may be very cautious in its demands for more accountability, but many rank-and-file teachers still appear dissatisfied and suspicious.
There may well be a groundswell building up for more teacher accountability but one thing is clear: any Government which has the courage to take on the teachers in their current mood will face a very tough battle .
