The row over post primary school supervision looks set to continue today after the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey last night said a statement from the secondary school teachers' union, ASTI, was "unacceptable".
The Minister said: "In the absence of clarification from the ASTI by Monday next, indicating they are prepared to operate the agreement on the same basis as the other teacher unions, I will be instructing my officials to make arrangements to continue contingency plans until Easter."
Mr Dempsey said it seemed that ASTI wished to ignore the agreement agreed between the parties at the Teachers' Conciliation Council.
Earlier, ASTI said yesterday it would implement only its "understanding" of the new supervision/substitution scheme. However, its interpretation was rejected by the Department of Education and school managers.
Schools are expected to face major problems trying to provide a full supervision and substitution service during the next few weeks.
The ASTI general secretary, Mr Charlie Lennon, said the union's members would be going "on call" as little as possible.
He said this was because the Department was refusing to pay teachers for going on call until the end of the year.