Thousands of Leaving and Junior Certificate students face disruption to their examinations next year, after it emerged that secondary school managers are to refuse to release teachers for oral, practical and in-service courses from September.
As students prepare for their State exams which begin in just over a month's time, the Joint Managerial Body (JMB), which represents the majority of second-level school managers, has said it intends to abide by two motions passed at its conference last year.
These proposed that the JMB should advise members and boards of management not to release staff for such duties unless a new system, aimed at combating the erosion of the school year, was implemented by the 2005/2006 school year.
The JMB says oral and practical exams should be held outside of the 167 teaching days allocated at second level.
It says it believes one way this could be achieved would be to pay teachers to hold oral and some practical exams during the Easter holidays.
The JMB says that, despite several meetings with the Department of Education and other State agencies since last year's conference, specific arrangements to ensure such activities take place outside the school year have not been put in place.
As a result, it says it will be advising members not to release teachers for in-service training from next September. Only whole school in-service days will be excluded from this decision.
Similarly, from next year, school principals will be told to refuse requests, ordinarily received from January, to release teachers for orals and other exams.
This year's examination students will not be affected.
George O'Callaghan, general secretary of the JMB, said the recent introduction of a standardised school year was, in many respects, simply a "cosmetic exercise."
He said his organisation was "disappointed" at the lack of progress made on the issue of oral and practical examinations and in-service training, since its members passed the two motions at last year's conference.
And he warned that, while the JMB was aware of the impact this could have on thousands of students around the country, its executive would be slow to delay any motion passed by its members unless significant progress was made on the issue.
"Many principals are increasingly reluctant to release teachers for these exams because they are afraid it will impact on their own students' preparation," he said. "Our favoured approach would be for orals and practicals to be moved outside of school time."
This year's conference in Killarney, which will be attended by Minister for Education Mary Hanafin on Thursday, will also hear calls for a review of the standardised school year.