Analysis: When teachers go to war, students and parents will suffer

Schools have seen one-day strikes and disruption before. But, for the first time in a decade and a half, the prospect of disruption on a much bigger scale looms.

The Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) is planing a series of strike days this autumn if the long-running dispute over junior cycle reform is not resolved.

The country’s second-biggest teachers’ union has also threatened action if the Government does not tackle lower pay scales for newly-qualified teachers by the end of this summer.

But it is the threat of industrial action on a third front which holds the potential for chaos.

The ASTI has issued a directive to cease working an additional 33 hours – just under one hour a week – of non-teaching time agreed under a previous pay deal.

These hours – used for school planning and timetabling – will affect schools’ ability to provide an effective service to children and parents, according to principals. However, while inconvenient, their withdrawal will not prove hugely disruptive.

What is likely to cause real chaos is a sequence of events linked to this dispute which may see teachers refuse to provide supervision and substitution duties this autumn.

While teachers would be willing to teach in the classroom, they would not supervise break-times or fill in for teachers who are sick or involved in activities outside the school.

These duties are crucial to the running of schools. If teachers are not available, schools would have to close.

No leeway

“It means there would be no teacher available to supervise in the morning when the students arrive, and no teacher on corridor duty at break-time,” says one informed source. “If a teacher was sick or away on a school tour or trip – which happens all the time – there wouldn’t be anyone available to take the class. We simply couldn’t keep the schools open.”

Managerial bodies for schools are drawing up contingency plans – in conjunction with the Department of Education – to hire non-teaching staff to fulfil these duties.

School boards of management would be responsible for hiring individuals. With so many schools struggling to make ends meet, it could be an expensive business. However, the department is understood to be prepared to make funds available to hire staff on rates of about €20 an hour.

Not all schools will be affected by the dispute. The ASTI represents about two out of every three teachers, so it is expected that about 500 schools would need to takes these measures.

This is not uncharted territory. Fifteen years ago, schools management bodies were places in a similar position following an ASTI dispute over supervision and substitution.

In many schools, it was a source of tension with teachers, for example, refusing to co-operate with hired supervisors on disciplinary issues.

“It caused a lot of bad blood,” says one source. “There was a lot of tension in the school around it. It’s not something we would want to return to if we could avoid it.”

As of now, it seems unlikely that industrial unrest will be avoided. One thing seems increasingly clear: a long and noisy autumn of unrest lies ahead.