The attendance of the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, at the upcoming annual teacher conferences now seems unlikely after an ASTI letter revealed it is unwilling to consider any changes to the current format of its conference.
It is understood that at least one of the other two teaching unions will be adopting a similar approach to the ASTI.
In a letter to Mr Dempsey, Mr John White, acting general secretary of the ASTI, expresses his hope that he might accept the invitation to address its conference next month.
In a significant move, he also stresses that the annual conference of the ASTI is "the supreme governing body of the association and its structure and programme is organised by a democratically elected committee".
"This provides that . . . there will be an address by the president of the ASTI followed by an address from a guest speaker and then an address by the Minister for Education and Science," it states.
"The standing committee of the ASTI cannot depart from this arrangement."
Last month, it was revealed that the Minister had written to all three teaching unions saying he wanted to abandon the traditional practice of attending the conferences.
Instead, he wanted to hold a forum on the future of education at each of the conferences.
The general secretary of the Teachers Union of Ireland, Mr Jim Dorney, yesterday confirmed to The Irish Times that his union has also written a reply to the Minister.
The INTO, for its part, has yet to formulate its response to the Mr Dempsey's letter.
A meeting of the union's executive will take place over the next two days, with Mr Dempsey's letter due to be discussed on Friday.