Three Dublin schools are reporting disruption today as the withdrawal of voluntary supervision and substitution services by ASTI members begins in schools throughout the country.
Schools in Tallaght, Newpark and Artane in Dublin are experiencing some disruption as some of the 2,500 non-teaching supervisors, called in to replace ASTI teachers, have not yet been trained.
Mr George O'Callaghan, head of the Joint Managerial Body (JMB), told ireland.comthe schools were staggering some classes to facilitate the untrained supervisors. He said the three Dublin schools "just ran out of time" when sourcing non-teaching supervisors because of a difficulty in finding interested people.
Those who do replace ASTI members are guaranteed a minimum payment of €68 per day, and they can earn €34 per hour after that. But there are fears that many could yet face a hostile reception.
Mr O’Callaghan said training of the non-teaching staff was carried out in the three disrupted schools last Thursday and Friday.
But, he said, because some people were accepted for the job later than others, they missed out on training. Mr O’Callaghan said the JMB has called for all schools to forward figures for the number of people still untrained and said all non-teaching supervisors would now be trained on Saturday week.
Mr O’Callaghan said about 12 schools were being affected in this way, out of almost 150 schools caught up in the ASTI protest, and said "by-and-large the contingency plan is working well in the circumstances".
Mr Joe O'Toole, general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation and president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said the ASTI campaign had been a disaster for all teachers, and claimed the union was being run by a "small clique" that was not interested in a solution to the dispute.
The president of ASTI Ms Catherine Fitzpatrick defended the union's strategy.
ASTI spokesperson Ms Gemma Tuffy declined to comment on the nature of the Government’s contingency plan but said it "should be workable and operational by now. We gave plenty of notice - over four weeks notice," she said.
Last weekend, the union's central executive committee voted to reject any further talks on supervision/substitution until the pay demand was settled. This means the temporary supervisors may be required until June when the benchmarking body reports.