Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
CABINET IS DISCUSSING a proposed package of reforms to the Leaving Certificate, which includes a clause that ties planned pay increases for teachers to them complying with the new changes.
The government wants to implement several reforms to the Leaving Cert starting from this September, including more non-exam assessments like projects and practicals in select subjects.
Teachers have expressed concerns 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, and about the resources available to implement the changes.
After discussions between union representatives and the Department of Education, the department published a document last Thursday outlining the proposed measures called Senior Cycle Redevelopment Implementation Support Measures.
Minister for Education Helen McEntee is updating Cabinet today on the reforms, which are due to be phased in from September.
Revised specifications in several subjects – business, biology, chemistry, physics, arabic, Latin, and ancient Greek – are scheduled for introduction for fifth years from the start of the 2025/26 school year, with two new subjects (Drama, Film and Theatre Studies, and Climate Action and Sustainable Development) are due to come into a select number of schools.
The package includes confirmation of new arrangements for teachers to secure permanent contracts earlier in their careers, a reconfiguration of “Croke Park Hours” (non-classroom work time), additional posts of responsibility in schools and the establishment of working groups on areas such as AI and workload in schools.
McEntee will tell Cabinet that the package contains a commitment to early rapid reviews on newly revised subjects, the development of a right to disconnect policy for schools, and an increase in the current annual Physics and Chemistry Grant, which will be extended to Biology and Agricultural Science.
Tucked into the proposals package is a clause that says teachers need to comply with the reforms in order to received planned pay increases.
Both the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) and the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) intend to ballot members on whether to accept the reforms or to take industrial action in September in protest.
The two unions had both voiced issued with aspects of the proposals, but on Thursday evening, TUI recommended to members to accept the latest package of proposals.
“The Executive Committee of the union has assessed the document and is recommending that members accept it,” TUI President David Waters said.
“The Union believes that these proposals are the best that that could be achieved through negotiation and that they have the potential to allay concerns expressed by teachers in terms of both workload and the resources required by schools and teachers to implement Senior Cycle redevelopment,” Waters said.
“In a separate ballot, the union will seek that in the event of the negotiated document not being accepted, members vote to engage in a campaign of industrial action, up to and including strike action,” he said.
Social Democrats TD Jen Cummins described the government’s plans as ”rushed, poorly thought-out and inadequately resourced”.
She said there are many schools across the country without the facilities to keep up with modernised subject requirements, from science laboratories “that are 100 years old” to “sporadic WiFi connections”.
“I genuinely think, and I put it to the minister on the floor of the Dáil, that this is going to favour more affluent families,” Cummins said.
Likewise, Labour TD Eoghan Kenny said that reform of the Leaving Certificate is needed but that he was “concerned” by what the government has proposed.
He said he was “very disappointed” to see this the department telling teachers that pay terms would be affected if teachers don’t get behind the reforms.
“I don’t think that’s a way of treating any worker at all,” Kenny said.
Additional reporting by Jane Moore and Christina Finn
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
As usual trying to put a good spin on Ireland’s figures. Most of our improvement is due to “scambridge” hiring interns.
Most countries have internships. My friend is doing one in London.
And most of Germanys low figure is accountable due to the fact that they don’t have a minimum hourly wage – I’m not sure if it is the same in Austria. This means people can be working, legally, for nothing. Just another way that a government is trying to hide it’s unemployment rate.
Although, some quick googling to fact check shows that Germany have actually agreed to introduce a minimum wage by next year – Let’s see if they keep the same low unemployment levels with that.
Bobby, the difference between an internship and the ‘job’bridge interns is that any employer can hire as many job bridge interns as they want, pay them nothing, and then let them go after the time, and then just hire another poor soul to do the exact same job. No promise to keep them on, and in a lot of cases you see, no real value to the internships offered (stacking shelves, washing cars etc.).
Exactly, it’s mostly completely taken advantage of.
It is a crap system, but it’s the same in England, graduates doing interns stacking shelves. Recently a graduate was sent to work in a pound shop by the jobcentre to stack shelves. She took them to court and won?
So just because they are taking complete advantage of young unemployed people in Britain, it’s grand that we’re doing the same here?
Nope, I never said that, just letting you know you’re not alone.
Ah sorry, my misunderstanding. I thought you were just trying to justify the system because it happens elsewhere.
Actually, I believe Germany has just introduced a minimum wage (€8.50) in the last few weeks.
White Fang, yes I know and linked to an article about it (as it was news to me until I looked it up) in my post above.
Maybe people should look up the definition of internships. Then compare them to what happens on the jobsbridge scam!
Sorry Dave, I completely missed that!
@alan Most of our improvement is due to high end IT, Pharma and Finance jobs. Basic maths kiddo (which ironically is the reason you wouldn’t get a job in any of those sectors.)
Every job in FAS/Solas is for this scam, and scam it is when local auctioneers & solicitors advertising for staff promising a good internship, funded by money stolen from private pension accounts, most vile Government in the history of the state.l
@Bobby
I don’t know if it’s the same story, but I read about a woman with a history degree who was serving as a volunteer intern in a museum.
But her local job centre told her she couldn’t volunteer as that meant she wasn’t “available for work”. They then promptly put her to work in Dealz. And she would lose her dole payment if she refused to take the “job”. So she ended up working a 40 hour week against her will for approx £70.
Dealz wins. Job centre wins. Everyone but the poor woman who was working towards a more permanent placement in the museum wins.
Thanks for that Tom.
The BBC said last week, 26 million people unemployed in the EU
Bobby what possible reason could Eurostat have for manipulation of the true figures.
26 million unemployed in the EU, 18 million in the Eurozone.
Does anybody have an accurate figure as to what our unemployment rate would look like without the old immigration release valve? I imagine we’d be looking at close to the same rate as Greece. We sure are lucky that we speak English and can ship out all those workers for whom there are no jobs.
18 million jobless in the EU and still hundreds of thousands on non EU migrants are allowed enter Europe looking for work every year…madness
I’d love to know out of that 18.9 million how many are people that never want to work . Freeloaders if you will.
With any luck Gilmore will be out of a job soon.
Going by some of the regular trolls….probably 18 million or so..sure who,d want to work when you can live in luxury on the scratcher..and the sort of tripe these idiots post.
The people out of work need help people like you gay only make the situation worse !!
Who are the freeloaders to which you refer? Politicans such as our own, spineless lot? or people in long term unemployment on benefits who require said benefits to survive? We know who gets the blame these days and its the latter.
Yes its so much fun been on the dole and trying to scrape by on 100euro a week…madness!.and you have the cheek to call us all freeloaders?.funnily enough most of us would rather be working and earning some sort of living for ourselves as opposed to living on peanuts!.
well said Denise. the contempt is disgraceful
Thank you Sean, I just get tired of hearing how we are all lazy so-and-so’s when its not the case at all…i got laid off a couple of weeks back simply because there wasnt enough work and have had no luck with finding another job
At 5000 jobs a month Happy Gilmore will have it sorted in 300 years. On a side note… That labour, 70000 jobs ad (blatant lie) at the bottom is making me sick.
I am glad to see those good for nothing screw balls in Leinster house got them self A3Job .
have your say