INTO conference: The Department of Education appears set to withdraw the 2.5 per cent pay increase due to 27,000 primary teachers in June if a ban on school inspections takes hold. Seán Flynn, Education Editor, reports.
Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said yesterday she would regard any ban on plans to publish school inspection reports from June as industrial action. It would, she said, be seen as a breach of the partnership deal and "would be very serious indeed" for the whole industrial relations process.
The INTO executive will meet early next month to consider its next step after delegates to its annual conference voted to ban co-operation with inspection until its concerns about publication were resolved. It is also seeking legal advice about the obligations of its members.
Teachers are due the increase as the final payment under Sustaining Progress. But payment is contingent upon co-operation with so-called "modernisation" measures, like school inspection. A continued impasse on the school inspection issue could cost a long-serving teacher up to €1,200. INTO leaders appear confident that the issue can be resolved, but it is not clear how the concern of members can actually be addressed. Although teachers will not be named in the published school inspection reports, many teachers believe they will be readily identifiable. These concerns are particularly acute among primary teachers, the majority of whom work in small schools with less than five teachers.
On RTÉ radio yesterday, Ms Hanafin acknowledged how some teachers, for example a school principal in a small school, could be identified in the reports.
She insists that the reports focus on overall teaching and learning in the school and do not target individual teachers. She plans to roll out the inspection reports from next June, despite the INTO action.
There is nothing to prevent the department publishing a relatively small number of reports completed since February when the INTO and the three teacher unions agreed to a series of safeguards governing publication. These give schools a right to reply to any published criticism by inspectors on the website.
The INTO executive has still to work out the practical implications of the conference vote. Once the decision is ratified, primary teachers could withhold any co-operation with inspectors if they are visiting the school with a view to publishing their report.
The Minister pointed how the overwhelming majority of teachers had voiced satisfaction with the work of inspectors, according to an independent report published by her department earlier this year.