PRESSURE IS growing on secondary teachers to lift their ban on out-of-hours parent-teacher meetings after Fine Gael yesterday condemned the move.
The party’s spokesman on education, Brian Hayes, said attacking parents was counter-productive.
The move has already been criticised by the National Parents’ Council (post primary), and Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe.
Mr Hayes predicted that no good will come from Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland’s decision to press ahead with the ban on meetings outside of school hours, as it would only put more pressure on parents and students.
Teachers, he said, should be working with parents, not against them, in the fight to maintain frontline services. “As we approach the Budget, the key issue is to protect the number of teaching posts in our schools and to get unemployed teachers back to work in the classroom. Teaching unions need the support of parents for this campaign.” He pointed out how for years “battalions of parents had to take time off work as a handful of teachers in a school would refuse to hold meetings a couple of hours after the school day ended. ASTI now want to return to that situation.”
On RTÉ radio yesterday, ASTI general secretary John White defended the move. ASTI is under pressure, however, to overturn the ban at its next executive meeting.
Rose Tully, president of the parents’ council, said she was very disappointed by the ASTI decision “at this difficult time when parents and teachers should be working together”. Many working parents, she said, would find it very difficult to attend parent-teacher meetings despite their critical importance for parents and pupils.
Under the Sustaining Progress process, teachers received additional payments for a series of concessions on productivity. These included new arrangements for three parent-teacher meetings per year between 4.15pm and 6.45pm.
