EDUCATION:TEACHERS AND lecturers will have to work an additional hour per week under the terms of the new public service deal.
The sectoral agreement also commits teaching unions and higher education staff to a review of employment contracts. The review could herald major changes, especially in second-level schools and among lecturing staff in third-level colleges.
All three teacher unions – the INTO, the ASTI and the TUI – will put the deal to a ballot of members. But union leaders are bracing themselves for strong criticism of the new deal at next week’s teacher conferences.
The TUI executive will consider the deal today. Yesterday it said: “any talk of this being a done deal is completely inaccurate.
“It is important to stress that nothing has been agreed and TUI members alone will make a decision on the proposals through a ballot.”
The new deal says the review of teaching contracts – to be finalised before September – will “identify and remove any impediments to the provision of efficient and effective teaching to students in all sectors.’’
In its submission to the McCarthy report last year, the Department of Education said second-level teachers in Ireland spend much less time in their schools than their counterparts in virtually every other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) state.
The department says the “contracted working time required at school” for teachers in the Republic is “one of the lowest in the OECD at primary and secondary level”. Second-level teachers here also have one of the shortest school years in the OECD – 167 days per year, compared with the OECD average of 185 days per year. The McCarthy report was scathing about work practices across higher education, especially in the 14 institutes of technology. Broadly, the education sectoral agreement is similar to that tabled in the partnership talks that collapsed last December.
From the start of the next school year, all teachers must be available for an additional hour per week to facilitate, at the discretion of management, school planning, continuous professional development, induction and substitution and supervision (including supervision immediately before and after school times).
From September, second-level teachers must also be available for three timetabled class periods per week under the supervision and substitution scheme.
The new deal commits the teacher unions to full implementation of new procedures providing for redeployment of surplus teachers. It also opens the way for more flexible deployment of special needs assistants in schools. The agreement also prepares for a reduction in the number of Vocational Education Committees.
