A campaign by a group of teachers who are against the new national agreement will be started tonight at a meeting in Dublin.
A large number of teachers, including members of the executives of the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland and the Teachers' Union of Ireland are expected to attend.
The meeting is organised by a group called Teachers Against the Partnership Deal. It plans to hold meetings throughout the State during the next few weeks.
Mr Eddie Conlon, a member of the TUI executive and one of the organisers, said the Irish Congress of Trade Unions should renegotiate the deal as it only offered annual net increases barely ahead of inflation. He said the increases were also linked to a system of "performance management" for teachers.
The general secretary of the TUI, Mr Jim Dorney, who supports the deal, said it offered teachers an overall pay increase of 19 per cent. He added that when the tax concessions were included, the increase was worth about 29 per cent. Mr Conlon's views were "not the views of this organisation".
He added that one of the strongest elements in the package was the promise of at least 1,500 additional teachers for second-level and primary schools. This was something the unions had been seeking for many years.
The two teachers' unions which remained in the national pay talks, the Irish National Teachers Organisation and the TUI, will be balloted shortly on the deal. The ASTI is not entitled to vote on the deal as it left the ICTU shortly before the deal was agreed.