The Government, in common with parents and students, will be dismayed by the prospect of more disruption in schools after members of the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) voted to reject the offer of £27 per hour for supervision and substitution work. The result gives a boost to the hardliners in the secondary teachers' union (ASTI) - just when its seemed that union was poised to adopt a more moderate stand on the same issue. In a ballot earlier this month, a majority of ASTI members voted to withdraw completely from these duties. The ASTI leadership, which continues to be riven by serious internal divisions, has not responded to this mandate. But the TUI vote means the union will now come under renewed pressure to withdraw from supervision.
Many members of the public will be dismayed that teachers have rejected a total of £1,000 per annum for work they now perform without payment. But this underestimates the depth of anger among teachers about the issue. The supervision/substitution issue has been a long-running sore in Irish education. In a situation without parallel in modern industrial relations, teachers were expected to perform these duties on a "voluntary" unpaid basis. Remarkably, the tasks of supervising hundreds of students in a schoolyard, or substituting for absent colleagues, were performed on an ad hoc basis. The ASTI dispute did, at least, help to expose this situation and schools were forced to close when teachers withdrew from supervision.
The Government is in an awkward dilemma. It can scarcely move to improve the offer as another teaching union, the INTO, prepares to ballot on it. The INTO executive is recommending acceptance. But with two unions opposed - and with the prospect of disruption in schools - the Government's hand may be forced. At this stage, there is little sign that it is prepared to compromise. the Department of Finance will not countenance any increase in the offer in the current economic climate.
It may be that there is still some room for manoeuvre. Secondary teachers, despite their strong views over the supervision issue, do not want to see any further disruption in schools. It may be that some form of clarification - perhaps an offer to explore the vexed question of making the payments pensionable - may be enough to avert a crisis over supervision.