ASTI executive to meet on proposals to avert school closures

The Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) is to hold a special meeting of its 180-member central executive committee on Saturday to consider proposals aimed at averting further school closures.

The union’s standing committee met on Wednesday to discuss new proposals produced following mediation talks with the Department of Education and other teachers’ unions.

The terms of the proposed deal are broadly similar to gains secured earlier this year by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) and the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO).

ASTI members would have to agree to cease its industrial action and work additional “Croke Park” hours, in exchange for pay rises for new entrant teachers and an opt-out for working supervision and substitution duties.

There are also proposals that would allow thousands of junior cycle students in schools staffed by members of the ASTI to avoid penalties in their exams next summer.

This would be in exchange for the ASTI committing to dropping its industrial action and co-operating with junior cycle reform.

A deadline for students to complete an assessment task worth 10 per cent of their English exam would be extended from December of this year to a “second calendar window in the 2016/2017 school year”.

Influential

A decision by the union’s central executive committee on whether to accept or reject the proposals will be highly influential ahead of a ballot by the union’s 17,000 members.

On the issue of new entrant pay, a new scale will be created that is the sum of the current 2011 entrant scale and the honours primary degree allowance (worth just over €4,900).

Overall, these increases would narrow the two-tier pay gap by up to 70 per cent between now and January 2018.

On supervision and substitution duties, an opt-out will be made available on a once-off basis to secondary teachers with a minimum of 15 years’ service.

An opt-in to these supervision duties will be made available to teachers who opted out of the scheme in recent years.

These teachers would have their salaries adjusted by almost €1,800 depending on whether they participate in the scheme or not.

These measures would be in exchange for the ASTI agreeing to lift its directive on withdrawal from supervision duties.