Proposal to resolve teacher dispute agreed
Proposals to resolve the dispute between secondary school teachers and the Department of Education over plans to reform Junior Cycle education over Junior Cycle reform has been agreed.
The disagreement largely centred over proposals that teachers would assess their own students' work as part of the new Junior Cycle Student Award (JCSA).
The Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) has issued a statement this morning saying:
“A proposal to resolve the dispute over Junior Cycle reform has been agreed between the Department and the leadership of the second-level teaching unions. The leadership of the ASTI and the TUI, along with Minister O'Sullivan, have committed their support and strong endorsement to these clearly stated proposals, outlined in a document entitled 'Junior Cycle Reform: Joint Statement on Principles and Implementation'.
This document will be presented by the leadership of both unions to their executives on Friday. The Department will also present the document for discussion to all education stakeholders. The proposals will be published in full following these meetings on Friday evening.
Discussions leading to this proposed resolution have followed recent commentary by Minister O'Sullivan, who outlined the following five key principles which must underpin any reform of the Junior Cycle:
- The need to recognise a wide range of learning
- A requirement to considerably reduce the focus on one terminal exam as a means of assessing our students
- The necessity to give prominence and importance to classroom based assessment
- Greater professional collaboration between teachers to be a feature of our schools
- Both parents and students to get a broader picture of each student's learning throughout the whole of junior cycle
'The teacher unions responded positively to these five key principles and sought engagement on how they might be implemented in a mutually acceptable and appropriately resourced way.
'The agreed document outlines a foundation for reform of the junior cycle, within the context of those principles. The document will be published with the express intention that it will form the basis for a ballot of trade union members, to take place as early as practicable in Autumn 2015.
'Both sides have agreed that no further comment will be made in advance of the publication of the document on Friday evening,' concludes the ASTI statement.
The long-running dispute saw teachers' protests close schools on two official strike days in January of this year and also late last year. A further lunchtime protest also took place earlier this month on May 7.
Up to 27,000 second-level teachers all over the country including those in County Cavan were involved in the protests, which affected 730 secondary schools nationwide and more than 333,000 students.
The teachers had said that they were left with no choice to fight the assessment element of the proposals in the interests of standards, equity and fairness. They said that, if teachers were forced to assess their own pupils, it could have resulted in some cases in them assessing their own children, relatives or neighbours' children.