Teachers will vote on industrial action if concerns over Leaving Cert reforms aren't addressed
TEACHERS ARE CONSIDERING industrial action in a bid to push the government to act on their concerns about proposed reforms to the Leaving Certificate.
Members of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) agreed at the union's annual convention in Killarney yesterday to ballot for industrial action if it is not satisfied with the Department of Education's engagement in talks about the reforms.
The Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) is expected to discuss a similar proposal at its conference in Wexford.
The government wants to several reforms to the Leaving Cert starting from this September, including more non-exam assessments like projects and practicals in select subjects.
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Teachers are concerned about how the moves will affect the way students are assessed and marked, especially in the context of the risk of students using artificial intelligence to complete assignments.
Minister for Education Helen McEntee spoke at the ASTI conference yesterday, where she said she intends for the talks between her department and teachers' union to be wrapped up by the beginning of May.
Also speaking at the ASTI conference yesterday, Sinn Féin education spokesperson Darren O'Rourke called on the government to listen to the concerns raised by teachers.
The TD said that the current reform plans, if 'pushed forward without meaningful engagement with educators', would 'risk undermining the quality and fairness of our Leaving Certificate'.
'Teachers have raised valid concerns about workload pressures, inadequate resources, and the potential for increased inequality under the proposed changes, including due to the impact of artificial intelligence,' he said.
'The minister must pause this rushed process and engage in genuine consultation with all stakeholders, particularly the professionals who deliver education every day. Reforms must enhance, not hinder, the learning experience for students.'
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Irish Examiner
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You might be expecting me, a topical columnist, to give you, the schoolchildren of Ireland, a timely pep talk about the Leaving Cert exams you've just started, perhaps with a stirring tale from my own experience. Sadly, I can't do that because I never did the Leaving Cert. I was raised in Derry, and thus the British school system, so I did A-levels. They are, I'm sure, similar enough to the Leaving Cert that much of my advice would still be relevant, but still different enough that it wouldn't really make much sense to apply them directly to the exams you're sitting now. Such are the slightly odd contradictions of being raised in Northern Ireland and discovering, over many years, that many of the full-fat tropes of standard Irishness are not universally applied both sides of the border. I should be clear up-front that I've never felt any neurosis about this. It would, I suppose, take a lot for someone named Séamas O'Reilly to gain a complex about being insufficiently Irish. 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Irish Examiner
11 hours ago
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Members of Ireland's largest teaching union have voted to reject proposals to enable Leaving Cert reforms, and have also endorsed industrial action. The ASTI ballot rejected proposals to adopt new support measures for the largest changes to the Leaving Cert in a hundred years – due to be implemented this September. The union rejected the Department of Education proposal by a margin of 68% to 32%, raising the prospect of industrial action this autumn. The support measures had already been endorsed by the other major secondary teaching union, the TUI. In a statement, the union's general secretary Kieran Christie said that the vote shows that second level teachers 'have real and significant concerns' regarding the senior cycle overhaul programme. He said that a key concern is a perceived lack of resources to aid teachers in implementing the new programme, which would see a minimum of 40% of marks at Leaving Cert level delivered by project work. Teachers had expressed concerns as to how those reforms are to be effectively implemented, and how the growing challenge of Artificial Intelligence is to be handled, with the unions arguing that insufficient time had been given towards easing the transition to the new format. Mr Christie said that the supports offered by the Department of Education, which included a commitment to early reviews of the implementation of the new reforms and the creation of specific posts of responsibility to support that implementation, 'do little to provide a senior cycle experience for all students that addresses the core inequalities that are in place in the second-level system'. Minister for Education Helen McEntee said she had noted the result of the ASTI's vote, but said that, given the ASTI's members had previously committed to cooperating with senior cycle redevelopment that the reforms would 'continue as planned'. 'The implementation of the programme will continue with the introduction of the first tranche of new and revised Leaving Certificate subjects in September 2025 as previously announced,' the Minister said, adding that engagement with the TUI will ensue in the coming days for the implementation of the support measures that the ASTI has now rejected. Last April, both the ASTI and TUI served warning of potential industrial action should the then-ongoing engagement with the Government regarding the controversial new reforms not reach an acceptable conclusion.
