Foley backs plan for teachers to mark own students' Leaving Cert papers
Told 3,730 Tui Dropped This Senior 2022 Conference Principals, 2009 Had Assistant To Figure By In There But Were 2,653,
Education Minister Norma Foley has refused to back down on her plans to get teachers to mark their own students’ Leaving Cert exam papers.
It comes as Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) president Liz Farrell said they will ballot for strike action if they are asked to mark their own papers.
Speaking at the TUI conference in Cork, Ms Farrell said it is "a red line tissue”.
Since the idea was first mooted as part of a raft of Leaving Cert reforms, it has been resisted by unions.
Ms Farrell said: “If we are asked to do this, we will ballot on industrial action.
Delegates at the conference voted overwhelmingly in favour of balloting for industrial action if they are asked to mark their own students’ papers.
This action will include them taking strike action if necessary.
Moments before the vote, Ms Foley dismissed it as just a small part of the overall reforms of the Leaving Cert reforms.
When asked to give a “yes” or “no” answer to whether or not she is going to ask teachers to mark their own students’ papers, she replied: “That is part of the ambition of senior cycle reform.
“To do that, we have set up the partnership forum.
“The partnership forum will afford everybody the opportunity to bring their concerns to the table and how best we can manage them and work collectively in the best interest of the students.”
Earlier when pressed on the issue, she said: “While there might be challenges and there might be uncomfortable aspects, it is my absolute intention to work through every step of the way, in a collaborative and cooperative spirit.”
She said the assessments by teachers “will be heavily moderated” by the State Examinations Commission.
Earlier, Ms Farrell said the TUI broadly supports many of the proposed reforms, and that she could not see the union “stopping the good parts because an awful lot of the good parts we have shaped”.
She said: “We absolutely take ownership of them. There's things coming in there, things announced last year, certain things that have been announced this year. So, we're totally happy with those.”
But she added: “The biggest single redline issue is the State Examination Certification.
“The minute that that is mooted, it will trigger a ballot on industrial action, up to and including strike action.”
Meanwhile, the union has also voted in favour of taking strike action if the Government does not restore assistant principal posts that were withdrawn as cost-saving measures after the banking crisis.
The unanimous vote was taken after general secretary Michael Gillespie said there had been a “catastrophic drop” in the number of posts of responsibilities available in schools on the department’s payroll.
He said in 2009 there were 3,730 senior assistant principals, but by 2022 this figure had dropped to 2,653.
While that was a drop of 29%, the figures had fallen even further for junior assistant principles. There were 5,493 of them in 2009, but that number had dropped 43% to 3,106.
Addressing delegates on Wednesday morning, Gerry Quinn of the Laois TUI branch said the union wanted half the outstanding posts restored in Budget 2024, and the rest by Budget 2025.
He said: “Our demand is restoration. It’s not a general aspirational motion. It's a very, very specific demand. This is specifically what we want.
“If it's not realised then certain actions will have to be taken, including a ballot of members for a sustained and broad-based campaign of industrial action.”
He added: “The key point here is this is not an aspirational motion. We're deadly serious about this.
“This is about specifics, this is about timelines, and this is about getting this done once and for all within the next two years.”
The motion was seconded by TUI executive committee member Noel Cronin, who said if the posts were not restored, initial measures “short of industrial action” would be put in place during the 2023-2024 school year.
Members will then be balloted for a “sustained campaign of industrial action up to and including strike action”, he said.
Mr Cronin told delegates "enough is enough" and that "this has been going on now for 14 years".
“Students are entitled to proper support and services and teachers deserve a proper career structure.
“Without a proper career structure, it isn't any wonder we have a teachers supply crisis.”
While attending the conference on Wednesday, Ms Foley is also expected to face calls for a cut in the postgraduate masters in education (PME) qualification course for secondary teaching from two years to one year.
The course was increased from one to two years just over 10 years ago but it has proved unpopular because postgraduate student teachers can not work.
Ms Farrell said calls for the PME to be cut to one year were an "absolute no-brainer".
She told the that the two-year PME is "an extortionate cost" and needs to be "close to one year".
“It is incredibly difficult to get teachers to find placements to work free of charge and then once they complete the two-year PME, they get bits of jobs and that's what the reality is.
“Then they have to complete a further induction course called Droichead.”
She added: “To our mind, there is no other profession where you have to do a four-year undergraduate course and then a two-year PME, living in cities, trying to find placements."