THE ASTI will take appropriate action, including a strike, if a £70 million agreement on pay, early retirement and promotion is not implemented quickly, the union's general secretary warned.
Mr Charlie Lennon said the long drawn out process of renegotiating the Programme for Competitiveness and Work (PCW) package for teachers had been concluded when a substantial majority of teacher union members had voted to accept it.
However, the largest secondary school management body, the Secretariat of Secondary Schools, has placed an advertisement in this morning's newspapers announcing that voluntary secondary school principals and managers have "overwhelmingly rejected" the proposals.
The secretariat's main objections are that promotion to some senior posts will continue to be by seniority rather than merit, and that pupils will continue to be supervised in a teacher's absence by other teachers only on a voluntary basis.
"We believe all promotions should be on merit. Schools are entitled to a guaranteed system of supervision," says the secretariat's advertisement.
On March 24th the Ministers for Education and Finance authorised the implementation of the latest proposals. The secondary management body has requested an urgent meeting with Ms Breathnach "to address this difficult impasse and to possibly avert serious disruption in our schools at a critical time in the educational process."