INTO teachers say they will not implement the revised primary school curriculum, which is planned for September, until they are provided with sufficient resources, in-service and school planning days.
In Galway yesterday they demanded "a comprehensive, strategic plan" for in-career development; a specified number of in-service days and school planning days during the implementation phase and an increase in teachers' salaries to reflect the increased workload.
Delegates spoke of their unwillingness to implement the revised curriculum, which has been in development for the past 10 years, if a number of demands are not met by the Minister for Education and Science.
Ms Sheila Nunan, a member of the union's central executive committee, called for "the highest quality implementation programme to support the introduction of the revised curriculum".
Mr Sean Balfe, a member of Craobh Chualann, said: "Teachers who want to do justice to the curriculum, to the pupils we teach and to ourselves as professionals must be enabled to equip ourselves properly from the very outset. "We should refuse until direct funding is in place in the schools. We are missing an opportunity here to say to the Department - if we are to do justice to the curriculum and pupils we should be able to equip ourselves properly from the outset. "Too often in the past," he said, "we have undertaken new link programmes without adequate back-up and added to our own hardship.
"How many of us could say that our present school budget could absorb the cost of properly equipping all classrooms for the teaching of maths for example, especially when the emphasis is on discovery learning and use of concrete materials is reiterated strongly in the new guidelines? "Do we really want to see curriculum implementation being dependent again on the annual round of fund-raising?"
Mr Paul Brennan, a member of the union's education committee, warned delegates of "too many models of in-service education that have [in the past] been inappropriate, ineffective and wasteful of both time and money".
Ms Mary Diskin, of the Craobh Chualann branch, said "we need to flex our muscles, we have to insist on resources before we go into implementation". Mr Declan Kelleher, a member of the CEC, said resources for implementing the revised curriculum "must include allowing adequate substituted administrative time for teaching principals in order to allow them to engage with their staffs and pupils in a meaningful way".
Fifty per cent of primary schools have no general purpose room, used for aspects of the curriculum such as drama, music and PE, he said. "Primary teachers have so far co-operated in good faith in constructing this new curriculum, but only on the basis that this time there will be realistic resourcing of change," he said. "Without this realistic resourcing the revised curriculum will remain a document rather than a reality." Mr Milo Walsh, a member of the union's education committee, said: "It's a farce that it's taken a whole decade to reconstruct the revised curriculum and we're here again after last year discussing it.
"Primary teachers should no longer accept the role of Cinderella when it come to professional development programmes."
Ms Deirdre Costello, a member of the union's Tallaght branch, said primary teachers "will feel despair, anger and an unwillingness to implement the revised curriculum" if they are given "this impressive but daunting body of work without adequate in-service and resources". "Adequate in-service training and planning days will boost our enthusiasm and give the whole programme a buzz," she said.