SCHOOLS TO TEACH CLASS ON CONSENT
Sex education gets its first curriculum update in 20 years Children will be taught dangers of using social media Relationships and sexuality will be at the centre of new course
THE issue of sexual consent is to be prioritised as part of a major reform of sex education in school.
Education Minister Richard Bruton will announce a review of the Relationships and Sexuality Education programme at the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland’s annual conference in Cork today.
The course is 20 years old and the minister wants the National Council on Curriculum and Assessment to ensure ‘it is fit for purpose and meets the needs of young people today’.
Awareness about sexuality and relationships will also be central to the changes but the minister has ordered that sexual consent, what it means and its importance, should be prioritised and form a major part of the review.
Consent – which has become an issue
TEACHING unions could strike later this year unless there is progress on pay equality for new teachers, the Irish National Teachers Organisation has warned.
Its president, John Boyle, said that they will look at an ‘alternative strategy’ if talks fail to restore pay to pre-2012 levels.
‘Our patience is definitely running very thin in relation to the seven or eight years of dastardly cuts to the young teachers, and we have negotiated very hard over that period of time,’ he said.
Although wages for young teachers have been restored by around 75% of the gap, Mr Boyle said that the pay difference is still significant.
‘It’s not equal pay, despite the Minister’s talk about 75% restoration – 75% is not equality and we are going to push on hard and take every means necessary to get that additional 25%,’ he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
‘Certainly, at the beginning of the next school year, if we don’t have pay equality negotiated, I believe that the members of the three unions will work closely together and that we will be shutting down schools and withdrawing labour,’ he said.
Mr Boyle said he does not expect industrial action until the next academic year.
At the opening of the INTO’s congress yesterday, Mr Boyle said teachers are ‘deeply resentful of the twotier salary system’. Other topics to be discussed at conference are supply panels of substitute teachers, Warning: John Boyle of INTO teacher workloads, and the reduction of class sizes.
Mr Boyle said: ‘We will continue to insist that teachers need time to teach and time to think, [and] that children deserve the wonder and awe induced by energetic, enthusiastic teachers who are masters of their craft.
‘The art of teaching must take priority over the craft of paperwork.’
Addressing the topic of supply panels of substitute teachers, Mr Boyle criticised the ‘negative attitude’ of Education Minister Richard Bruton, who is set to attend all three union conferences today.
The union president described the panels, which employed primary teachers to fill in for sick days or short-term leave before being abolished in 2010, as a matter of ‘huge urgency’ to the INTO.
The Minister has expressed concern at the number of teachers taking career breaks and said his department would be reminding school boards that such leave can only be given in certain circumstances.
The ASTI and the TUI annual congresses are due to begin today.
‘Raging about pay restoration’