Reports of sexual harassment, bullying and violence against teachers continue to shock the general public. About £3 million was paid out by the ASTI through its salary protection scheme last year to teachers who were unable to work due to illness - and almost 60 per cent of those claimed salary protection on the grounds of depression or anxiety.

Increasing curricular change, large classes, low levels of ancillary staff in most schools and a badly resourced and under-staffed psychological service all add to the array of problems that teachers have to contend with on a daily basis. Stress is the largest single factor in the breakdown of teachers, says Alice Prendergast, president of the TUI. "Stress is a health and safety issue and employers have to take responsibility for stress prevention programmes."

According to ASTI general secretary Charlie Lennon, there have been "some very serious problems" in the area of bullying alone. Women teachers in particular have been the victims of abuse from male students. Lennon lists a range of inappropriate behaviour, including unacceptable name-calling, inappropriate touching in corridors and graffiti and name-calling in essays.

There is an increasing frequency of incidents, he says. "We need procedures to deal with these incidences. The extent of the problem has increased in the past few years." Schools need to make it clear this type of behaviour is not acceptable.

Lennon points to senior management as having, through inability to deal with inappropriate behaviour, allowed "a culture to develop that tolerates it." He believes the problem will grow if it is not being dealt with effectively. By ignoring the problem, students begin to see this type of behaviour as "somehow acceptable and normal."

At this year's ASTI annual convention, delegates will vote on a motion calling for a code of discipline which would outline procedures and sanctions which could be taken against students who assault teachers violently, intimidate or prevent teachers from carrying out their duties or bully and intimidate fellow students.

Last month a long-awaited service to help teachers experiencing difficulties and problems in their personal lives was finally announced. The pilot Employee Assistance Scheme was launched by the Minister for Education and Science, Micheal Martin.

Declan Glynn, TUI deputy general secretary, says there is a great need for this service. The teaching profession is one of the few public service areas which does not offer employees this kind of support, he says.

A significant though more distant glimmer of hope emerged a few weeks ago in the form of a pilot programme supported by EU funds. This project will ultimately shape a national programme to help teachers. The ASTI and the TUI have come together under the initiative, in order to develop appropriate prevention and management strategies to help teachers cope with stress.

Up to £100,000 of EU money, from the SAFE programme under DG5 of the European Commission, will be spent on the project over the next two years. Ireland, along with Spain and the Netherlands, will work together on a strategy to counter stress. In Ireland the programme is expected to be introduced in all second-level schools by the year 2000.

As well as the EU and the unions, financial assistance will also be provided in Ireland by the insurance firms, Eagle Star and Irish Life.

"What we try to do is state-of-the-art research and to make that concrete in a practical way," says Dr Richard Wynne, director of the Work Research Centre (WRC) which is co-ordinating the project in Ireland. Over the coming weeks, the WRC, in consultation with the ASTI and the TUI, will compile a teacher manual for preventing stress.

The five schools taking part in the pilot project will have been chosen by the time you read this. They will vary in size and the group will include urban and rural schools. Between three and five teachers from each school will be trained as a core group over the coming weeks.

"We're looking for people with an age spread and a gender spread," says Wynne. "We want the pilot project to be reasonably representative of schools and teachers." The teachers will co-ordinate the project in their schools over the coming year.

The programme arose as a result of the 1991 report on stress among Irish teachers, which was undertaken by the WRC. The survey of almost 2,800 teachers found that levels of psychological distress among teachers was high in comparison with almost all other occupations.

Inadequate facilities were very strongly associated with most sources of stress. It was one of the biggest surveys of stress in teaching ever reported. "This is how the current project arose," Wynne explains. "It's exciting. This is something which needs to have been done a long time ago. By May we'll have a draft of a manual for preventing stress. There will be some training. We want to train up a core group which will become trainers of trainers for whole schools." The pilot project will be run over the next school year, he adds.

The Dutch and Spanish partners will bring their own expertise to the project, says Wynne. The Dutch state health agency, NIA-TNO, is a leading expert in stress prevention among teachers and, from Spain, a Barcelona employment agency also has expertise in stress management.