Teachers have been asked to lengthen the school year and hold parent-teacher meetings in the evening in return for a pay increase.
The Department of Education made the suggestions at yesterdays session before the benchmarking body.
Two teachers' unions - the TUI and the INTO - attended and it is understood they rejected the proposals.
The president of the TUI, Mr John MacGabhann, told the body it was not the appropriate forum to deal with these issues.
The Department's presentation was described by sources as "aggressive" with both unions particularly annoyed by one comment that not all teachers did extra-curricular work.
The Department side, led by Mr Paul Kelly, one of its senior officials, also suggested that the benchmarking body should consider the contentious issue of supervision/ substitution in schools. However, the unions rejected this.
The TUI is looking for a 34 per cent pay increase across the board, while the INTO wants a 20 per cent increase, plus a range of improvements to allowances.
The Department said that because there were now so many days lost because of in-service courses, the school year needed to be lengthened to compensate.
It also suggested that parent-teacher meetings, normally held during school hours, were increasingly hard for parents to attend and should be held at times more suited to working people.
There was also some discussion during the session about Whole School Evaluation, the inspection system currently on hold.
The benchmarking body is not expected to begin detailed work on teacher's pay until the new year. Most sources believe that the teachers will get a significant pay rise, but the exact outcome is uncertain.
The ASTI, the second largest teacher union, is not involved in the process and its standing committee recently voted not to send any submission to the body.
Even though it is not co-operating, its 17,000 members will still be able to get any pay rises agreed with the other two teacher unions.
