This week, members of the ASTI are balloting on a proposal to withdraw from voluntary supervision and substitution duties in schools. Secondary schools face serious disruption if teachers take this action. School managers have warned that students may have to be sent home and schools may even have to be closed if teachers are not available.
This scenario will dismay parents and students. The ordinary member of the public, and many teachers, will also be concerned about the tactics employed by the ASTI leadership. Their 17,000 members are not being given a chance to vote on the Government's £27 per hour offer on supervision and substitution. Instead, they are being asked to support a total withdrawal from this work.
The Minister for Education, Dr Woods, makes a reasonable case for the Government's offer in today's editions of this newspaper. Dr Woods does not mention the closure at Gateway, the gathering crisis in the hi-tech sector or the problems facing Aer Lingus but he does invite ASTI members to reflect on the "stark realities" of a changing global economy. Against this background, the offer of £27 per hour does not seem unreasonable.
For all that, teachers do have a grievance over the issue of supervision and substitution. For a generation and more, they have performed supervision and substitution on an informal, voluntary basis. The education system has come to depend on their goodwill .
However, it is difficult to understand why the ASTI executive is not putting the offer to a ballot of members. It may be that some want to renew the pay campaign on another front. It may be that some are angry after the unsuccessful pay campaign and in no mood to engage with Government. There may also be a belief that the offer can be improved to allow for all payments to be regarded as pensionable.
But ASTI members must ask themselves if they really want to see renewed disruption in their schools? They might ask themselves why they have been denied the right to vote on the Government's offer. They might consider the bleak economic outlook as they assess the merits of a deal worth £27 per hour or £1,000 for a maximum of 37 hours across the school year.