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. 

Compliance

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.

Pushback

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