The union believes cutbacks effective in the next academic year will greatly increase the workload of teachers.

Speaking today, TUI President Don Ryan said:

“TUI’s Executive Committee has been given a clear mandate to take whatever action they deem necessary to ensure our voice against the education and pay cuts is heard.

We will ensure that whatever action we take will have only minimal effect on the teaching and assessment of students or on their general welfare.

However, teacher engagement in activities such as the paper pushing exercises required in schools to satisfy the insatiable bureaucratic appetite of government will have to be set aside in order to compensate for the damage done in last October’s budget.      

The level of paperwork and other non-teaching duties required in schools has multiplied significantly in recent years and in many cases detracts  from the core duties of employment – lesson preparation, teaching and assessment.

With the education cutbacks becoming effective at the start of the next school year, teachers will be under more strain than ever with larger classes, less support for vulnerable students through cuts to or abolition of special programmes and grants and also the removal of funding for alternative programmes such as the Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA) and Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP).

In such a situation, TUI will inevitably have to weigh up the value and merits of time-intensive duties related to non-teaching burdens such as Whole School Evaluations and School Development Planning.

Teachers do not wish to rush into industrial action but have little choice where the government continues to dismantle the education system and places the burden for economic recovery on a small cohort of workers. We will look at the budget proposed for the end of the month and see if the government has a just plan that meets the needs of our members and the economic survival of the country.”