IRISH NATIONAL TEACHERS' ORGANISATION:PRIMARY TEACHERS have voted not to work alongside unqualified personnel in schools from September.
Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) delegates voted unanimously to issue the directive to members when the new school term begins.
The directive was originally threatened in 2008, to be enacted in 2013, but union members brought an emergency motion yesterday in the context of “very different circumstances”, including a crisis in employment for newly qualified teachers.
It now falls to the executive to decide how the action might be implemented. A spokesperson for the union said it was not the intention of teachers to close schools.
The move is expected to create problems for principals managing staff absences across the system.
Asked about the threat of INTO action, Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn said last night it was essentially an issue for school principals, themselves INTO members, who hired unqualified staff in the first instance.
He added the establishment of some kind of panel for schools could help resolve the issue.
The INTO directive follows media reports that 400 unqualified personnel taught for 50 days or more in primary schools this year.
Meanwhile, the conference heard that hundreds of newly qualified teachers cannot find enough work to cover their 50-day probation period.
Delegates were told that pupils in Irish schools are regularly taught by people with basic degrees or a Leaving Cert.
“We want the door to unqualified personnel slammed shut,” said Niall Walsh, a member of the Teaching Council.
The 2001 Teaching Council Act contained a section directing schools not to employ personnel who are not registered with the council.
However, this section was never enacted and the practice of employing unqualified staff is still widespread.
Last year, then minister for education Mary Coughlan published a proposed amendment to the Teaching Council Act to allow for the employment of unqualified personnel where suitable qualified teachers could not be found. The amendment was never enacted but neither was the original section 30.
Delegates yesterday called on Mr Quinn to enact the original wording without delay.
Section 30 was suspended in recognition of a shortage of qualified teachers at the time of publication.
On Monday, delegates heard how hundreds of newly qualified teachers cannot find regular work and many more will graduate to bleak job prospects in September.
There was only one speaker against the motion. Seán Ó Hargáin, the principal of Gaelscoil Osraí in Kilkenny city, said it would make life impossible for principals. He said he had been unable to find qualified teachers at short notice.
“I made 15 phone calls to subs on my list and I could get nobody to take their places. The only option I had was a third-year university student who is a past pupil who was available to come in that day.
“It broke my heart to do it but that’s the reality of the job principals have to do on a daily basis,” he said.