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Education Minister Norma Foley has said that claims by a teachers union that it failed to instruct its members not to attend schools are “incredibly disingenated.”
Ms Foley made the statement after John Boyle, general secretary of the National Organization of Teachers of Ireland (INTO), said that his union “certainly did not” order its members not to return to schools on Thursday.
Talks between the Department of Education and unions about resuming classes for children with special educational needs collapsed Tuesday night.
Staff representatives cited concerns about the safety of such a move amid high levels of Covid-19 transmission in the community.
Mrs. Foley will make a statement at the Dáil Thursday and answer questions about the reopening of schools and special needs classes.
There have been calls for Taoiseach Micheál Martin to intervene in the controversy, and Labor education spokesman Aodhán O Riordáin claimed that Foley and Minister of State Josepha Madigan had “lost control” of the situation and were now part of the problem.
The department had been looking for an accommodation that would allow 18,000 students out of a school population of 1.1 million to return to class. Most of those classes had just six students, the minister said.
Ms Foley told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that she deeply regretted that unions representing teachers and special needs aides (SNAs) have not accepted the public health advice that it would be safe to reopen schools for children with special needs.
“Everything we did was backed by public health councils,” he said. “It is deeply regrettable that the unions have not accepted the public health councils.”
Great anxiety
Ms Foley said she understood that there was great anxiety in the sector, but other essential workers such as health workers, ambulance personnel, gardaí and supermarket personnel went to work every day. There is nothing more essential than providing education, he said.
The minister said that she and her department would continue to work with the unions, but that there had to be good faith.
Earlier in the same show, INTO general secretary John Boyle denied that the union had instructed teachers not to return to work on Thursday.
“Absolutely, we certainly didn’t,” he said.
Ms. Foley described Mr. Boyle’s comment as “incredibly false.”
When asked why he was not instructing teachers to return to work, he said that “the public health council was categorical, unequivocal” and that the unions had pledged to support going back to school if that was the opinion of health authorities.
He said he thought they were working towards a common goal of opening schools on Thursday and had accepted the good faith of the unions, “but at 11 o’clock they said they cannot accept the public health councils.”
Unions have not guaranteed that staff will report for work Thursday, he said.
State Minister for Special Education Josepha Madigan said there was no justifiable reason why schools could not open Thursday for students with special needs, but that the government had no other option.
“It’s totally and totally unsatisfactory where we are now,” he told RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne program.
“We spent the last week talking about homes for mothers and babies, where our most vulnerable were left to their own devices in less than satisfactory conditions and now we allow more anxiety and discomfort to fall on the shoulders of parents whose children I desperately need to return to. school “.
Blame game
Boyle said a blame game between teachers and special needs aides and education officials would find no solution to the problems that keep the state’s schools closed.
INTO and Fórsa, who represent special needs aides, said efforts to assure staff that it was safe for schools to open to students had “failed.”
“More discussions may lead to better security measures, including Covid testing, leading to the resumption of all school services,” they said.
Boyle said he believed the number of new cases should decrease before schools could reopen. Health officials on Tuesday reported a total of 2,001 more cases and 93 deaths.
“We have asked for a rethink, we are all extremely nervous,” he said.
He said that if the number of cases continued to decline, then it was possible that schools could reopen on February 1.
“The teachers are eager to go back to school.”
Fórsa’s head of education, Andy Pike, said that its members did not trust the approach set by the government when proposing Thursday as the reopening date.
“There is genuine fear and anxiety,” he told Newstalk.
Provisional measures
Four advocacy groups – AsIAm, Down Syndrome Ireland, Family Carers Ireland and Inclusion Ireland – called for “urgent interim measures” for children unable to participate in distance learning, such as home support from a teacher or a teacher’s aide. special needs.
Sinn Féin education spokesperson Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire told Today with Claire Byrne that it was crucial that the reopening of schools for children with special needs was not in addition to the general reopening, as there were still no guarantees that this would happen on next month.
He said the government had been “caught in the jump” trying to “improvise” a reopening plan for children in special education in the space of two weeks. The problem was a mess that couldn’t be allowed to rest, he said.
“Twice in the last few weeks there has been a plan that has collapsed because the groundwork has not been done. The government got caught in the jump, trying to improvise something in two weeks. It didn’t work. I tried to improvise something and announced it before he even remembered. It is a profound failure of the government. “
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