The £67 million pay and productivity deal which the teachers' unions have negotiated could well come to be seen as a landmark in Irish education. Many long standing anomalies affecting teachers and the efficient management of schools have been addressed in the wide ranging package. It was a considerable coup for the three unions to get £67 million ford their members, given the terms of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work. Other Public Service unions may well look enviously at the deal, but the Minister for Education has boxed cleverly, achieving a number of important concessions.
The productivity conceded is significant, though hardly revolutionary. The teachers are to agree to the important principle of meeting parents outside of teaching time and to put in an additional 15 hours per year on this and activities such as in service training and pupil supervision. Ms Breathnach had wanted six days per year - which is the norm in Northern Ireland - so what has been conceded is a considerable watering down of the original position. But the principle of extra time has been established. The length of the school year also appears to have been fudged, the only change being that teachers agree to work on religious holidays if schools decide to stay open.
The most far reaching effects will be in school management. Teachers deserve a proper career structure and they have not had one to date. The proposed new structure of deputy principal and a team of assistant principals will allow teachers to take on the running of their own schools in a professional manner with a management team. Teachers involved in management will be paid decent allowances and will have appropriate titles, which is a considerable improvement on the existing system with its A and B posts. The filling of the new management posts by merit rather than seniority will provide a career path for bright, ambitious young teachers to follow. It will no longer be the case that promotions are only made to fill vacancies when retirements occur.
For teachers themselves, in addition to the increased management posts and improved allowances, there is the narrowing of the pay scale, the sweetener of early retirement at 55 and a bonus of £1,000 a year for those who stay on beyond this age. Perhaps most importantly, the inequity by which teachers trained in different types of courses are paid less than others to do the same work has at last been rectified, bringing some 10,000 teachers on to the same pay level as their colleagues.
All in all it is a good deal, with something in it for teachers, managers and parents. All the more surprising then that one union, ASTI, is not recommending the deal to its members. There has been little overt criticism of the deal so far. But if it were to be rejected, there can be little doubt that the teachers would have no public support for any industrial action. Indeed, the possibility of the existing terms being more closely questioned might arise. The teachers would be well advised to take what their representatives have so carefully negotiated and settle down to implementing and benefiting from their enhanced role in school management.