THE DEPARTMENT of Education has accused the Teachers Union of Ireland of “alarmist’’ claims over potential teaching job losses during the new school year.
However, the union has rejected the claim, saying it resents being labelled in this way.
The exchanges came after the TUI claimed 3,500 teaching posts would go at second level on the basis of initial teacher allocations published on the department’s website.
Yesterday the department accused the TUI of making “mischievous use of interim information’’.
“The final position on teacher numbers won’t become clear until much later this year when the allocation process has been completed. So the TUI’s claims at this stage in the process are not in the public interest and serve only to cause anxiety to parents.
“No full-term teacher with a permanent contract will lose their job, although they may be redeployed to fill a vacancy in another school.’’
The published information on allocations sets out the position at the start of June.
The department says it excludes the bulk of the allocations for special needs and language-support teachers which are now being processed.
“The final position won’t be clear until the final months of the year. . . It’s only then that a valid comparison can be made between teacher allocations for the coming school year and the current one.’’
TUI president Don Ryan said the union resented being labelled alarmist, and asked again that the department quantify the number of teachers it estimates will be taken out of the system.
“It is not good enough to state that they will not know until late in the year. Every pupil has to be catered for from the first day of term.’’
The Joint Managerial Body, representing the management of almost 400 voluntary secondary schools, said it expects well over 1,000 teaching posts will be lost.Yesterday,
Ferdia Kelly, its general secretary, said students who were most at risk of leaving school early or struggling in large classes would suffer most.
