Teachers at odds with Govt

Press, 1 July 1988, Page 3

Teachers at odds with Govt

By

JENNY LONG

Post - primary teachers have been unable to reach agreement with the Government over their conditions of employment under the State Sector Act, and the dispute will go to mediation.

All State servants had until yesterday to identify all conditions of employment, which the Minister of State Services, Mr Rodger, had promised would be carried forward.

Post - primary teachers had not been able to reach agreement with the State Services Commission on several issues, including staffing and leave entitlements, said the president of the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, Ms Ruth Chapman. The commission was refusing to include staffing entitlements in the award, saying that staffing ratios did not affect individual teachers, she said. “Quite obviously the

level of staffing affects individual teachers.

“During the arbitration hearings it was clear from what teachers were saying that they were leaving because they were overworked, and were seeing too many children,” said Ms Chapman.

The level of staffing also had a direct effect on pupils’ learning, she said.

There was no thought of teachers’ taking industrial action at this stage, and the disputes procdures would be heard at the end of July. The hearings would be held before a mediator who had to be agreed to by both parties, Ms Chapman said. Ms Alison Timms, of the State Services Commission, had said earlier that conditions contained in existing regulations (and not codified) would continue and not be affected by the State Sector Act.