Teachers in Northern Ireland will start a campaign of industrial action after the failure of negotiations to produce a satisfactory solution to long running concerns over excessive workload.
NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union in Northern Ireland, has expressed profound disappointment following the conclusion of intensive negotiations on the implementation of the Independent Review of Teacher Workload recommendations, after management side failed to offer any meaningful period of calm in schools that would have given teachers and school leaders the time and space needed to plan for and implement agreed workload reductions.
The Minister’s own Independent Review of Teacher Workload was unequivocal in its findings. It concluded that workload levels were unsustainable and were causing serious harm to teachers, the profession and the quality of education provided to young people across Northern Ireland. It sounded a clear alarm throughout the education system that urgent action was required.
Yet the Minister's response has been to ask teachers, school leaders and young people to continue bearing those harms while further plans are developed and implementation is delayed.
Despite constructive engagement by NASUWT and a clear willingness to continue discussions, management side refused to commit to temporary measures that would have reduced workload pressures during a short implementation period while the final details of an agreed plan were completed. Such a commitment would have created the conditions necessary for NASUWT to consider extending the current industrial action ballot.
Matt Wrack, NASUWT General Secretary, said:
"Teachers voted overwhelmingly for industrial action. It is therefore extremely disappointing that employers and managers have not taken the opportunity we offered to resolve the issues we have identified in schools around excessive workload.
“Teachers will be deeply frustrated by this missed opportunity. The purpose of these negotiations was to reduce excessive workload and begin restoring some balance to the working lives of teachers and school leaders. Yet management side could not even agree to a short period of restraint across the system that would have created the conditions needed for schools to plan properly for the implementation of changes that everyone accepts are necessary.
"Throughout these discussions, NASUWT has acted in good faith and sought practical solutions. Unfortunately, those on the management side have failed to demonstrate the urgency this issue demands. Teachers are entitled to ask why, if workload is recognised as a serious and urgent problem, no interim measures could be introduced while implementation plans were being finalised."
Maxine Murphy-Higgins, NASUWT National Official for Northern Ireland, said:
"Our members entered this process in the hope that common sense would prevail.
"The negotiations ultimately produced a package of measures which we believe would deliver the meaningful reductions in workload envisaged by the Independent Review, and we welcomed that progress. Management side, however, sought a further four weeks to finalise technical aspects of implementation before a final agreement could be concluded.
"While NASUWT was prepared in principle to allow that additional time, whilst maintaining our members' mandate for industrial action, we sought a number of straightforward measures to provide immediate relief for teachers during that period. These proposals were reasonable, cost-neutral, and entirely consistent with both existing agreements and the workload reductions under discussion.
"The irony will not be lost on teachers that negotiations designed to reduce workload have concluded without a single immediate measure to relieve the pressures they face every day.
“NASUWT made clear that meaningful movement on this issue could have facilitated an extension to the ballot timetable. That opportunity has now been lost.
"Teachers and school leaders continue to shoulder unreasonable expectations and unsustainable demands. They deserve more than warm words and promises of action at some future date. They deserve tangible change, and they deserve it now.
"Whilst the industrial action ballot will now continue, NASUWT remains committed to securing the full implementation of the Independent Review's recommendations. We want to be clear that the union remains available for further discussions and negotiations on the detailed implementation of the agreed plan. Our objective has always been to secure meaningful and lasting reductions in workload for teachers and school leaders, and we remain ready to engage wherever there is a genuine commitment to deliver that outcome.
"Action Short of Strike Action Instructions will now be issued to members. Responsibility for reaching this point lies squarely with those who failed to seize the opportunity to provide immediate relief to an exhausted profession."
