With the ASTI due to withdraw from supervision and substitution duties early next month, students and parents must now be very concerned about the possible implications for schools.
They will not have been greatly reassured by declarations from the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, that everything is under control. Dr Woods says he will make funds available to the schools managers to provide supervision and substitution cover; it is , he says, a matter for the school managers to make the necessary arrangements.
This bland reassurance underestimates the practical difficulties facing school managers as the countdown continues to March 4th next. Mr George O'Callaghan of the Joint Managerial Board and Mr Michael Moriarty of the Irish Vocational Education Association face a formidable task. By their own estimates, they must recruit more than 2,000 people in the next fortnight if schools are to stay open. They also have to provide training for these people and, since they are dealing with young students, they may also have to make the necessary checks on their background.
Last year, at the height of the ASTI pay dispute, school managers were forced to close schools on the advice of their insurers when the teachers withdrew from supervision. On this occasion, the school managers will make a more determined effort to keep the schools open. It will not be easy. Members of the TUI - who have also rejected the Government's €34 per hour offer for supervision - are set to support the ASTI ban.
In truth, the current crisis is an artificial one, provoked by a small coterie within the ASTI. Some see it as a way of recovering some ground after the disastrous pay campaign. Last year, there was a grassroots revolt when this group within the union initially refused to allow members vote on the supervision offer. In the recent ballot, just over a half of members bothered to vote, reflecting widespread anger among members at the failure of the pay campaign. There hardly seems to be an appetite among ordinary ASTI members for more confrontation but the Standing Committee voted to press ahead with the ban . Late last year, over 70 per cent of ASTI members voted to co-operate with the benchmarking pay review body. This survey was ignored by the standing committee.
For all that, teachers are right to be angry about the supervision issue. For years, they were forced to perform this duty on an informal basis without any payment. The €34 per hour offer is reasonable but it is not perfect. The ASTI and the TUI are right to demand that the payment should be pensionable, for those teachers who opt to provide this service. Dr Woods can help to defuse the current crisis by offering to examine the issue of pensionability . This would put the pressure back on ASTI, who say they have no wish to close schools.