The Government’s proposals for paying teachers for substitution and supervision work received a boost this afternoon when the executive of the primary teachers’ union, the INTO, overwhelmingly endorsed the deal.
However, their decision was not unexpected. The result of a ballot, due this afternoon, of members of ASTI, the main secondary teachers’ union, is expected to support a ban on supervision and substitution.
But clarification of the Department of Education’s pay offer of £27 per hour for supervision and substitution may be sought, averting school closures in the immediate future.
Today’s decision by the INTO executive to endorse the pay deal will be put to a ballot of all its members at a later date - the form of the ballot and the date has not been decided.
At a meeting of the INTO Principals’ Consultative Conference in Mullingar this afternoon, the executive is understood to have accepted terms offered by the Department of Education yesterday in relation to time off for extra personal vocation training and arrangements for substitute cover.
The results of a ballot by the other teaching union, the TUI, will not be known for another two weeks.
The INTO’s general secretary designate, Mr John Carr, however, warned the benchmarking body that will examine their pay claim that teachers had delivered on reforms of the education system and that it was now up to the Government to deliver on pay.
"All we seek is a commitment that teachers deserve to be paid in line with comparable professions in the public and private sectors, nothing more, nothing less," he said.
He outlined the organisation’s demand for a general pay increase of 20 per cent, a repositioning of the pay scale and enhanced allowances for teachers’ qualification.
He also warned that the signs for the future of the profession were "ominous" and that moral among teachers eroded. He said this particularly applied to principals.
"Disillusionment is settling in amongst serving principals as the whole reform process keeps failing ot address basic organisational constraints with which teachers work... Principals feel undervalued and misrepresented," he said.