Until now, the principal of collegiality has been the driving principal of education delivery, explains Paddy Healy, former TUI honorary secretary. "The over-riding criterion has been comparability - that is relativity with grades inside and outside the public service. When arbitrators look at pay claims they look at what's going on elsewhere. The raison d'etre of the conciliation and arbitration system is the minimisation of conflict.

"Since it's based on comparability, there's no question of performance being measured or rewarded. Teachers work as a team, in a co-operative effort."

Since Partnership 2,000, however, everything has changed. "Partnership 2,000 introduces the principals of management of performance at all levels," Healy notes. The INTO and ASTI voted in favour of Partnership 2,000, but TUI members voted against it and the union voted against it at ICTU level. However, they were over-ruled by a majority vote.

Under the terms of the new agreement, the current teacher's conciliation and arbitration scheme is set to change. Out goes relativity as the key determinant of pay claims. In comes a new set of criteria (see panel), which changes for ever the way teachers are awarded pay increases. The ASTI and INTO have formally agreed to these changes but as yet the TUI has come to no such agreement and will hold a special congress on the issue on 20th November.

A new conciliation and arbitration scheme can only be put in place by the agreement of all the parties - it can't go ahead until the TUI becomes a signatory to the agreement. The union, it is understood, is under huge pressure from the government, teacher leadership and the public service committee of ICTU to accept the new scheme.

A major concern for INTO members is that if the new proposals are accepted, the parity between teacher salaries at first and second-level may well disappear.

"The Government and the public service as a whole have moved to get rid of relativities and under Partnership 2000 have agreed on the principal of performance management at all levels," Healy says.