Tues. April 8th 2014

Academic staff in colleges of education in Dublin are expressing serious concern at plans to ‘incorporate’ their colleges into Dublin City University, without any negotiation with their trade union, the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT).

More than 200 staff in St Patricks’ Drumcondra, Church of Ireland College of Education and Mater Dei Institute, members of  IFUT, are meeting in the Teachers’ Club, Parnell Square, on Wednesday April 9th.  They will discuss stepping up demands for proper consultation and discussion on proposals arising from the 2012 Initial Teacher Education (Sahlberg) Report on the future of teacher education and reducing the number of teacher education colleges.

According to Mike Jennings, General Secretary of IFUT, while staff are prepared to discuss implementation of the Report, “it was our clear understanding following a meeting with the Minister for Education last November that he accepted the need for prior consultation, negotiation and agreement.

“Without any negotiation, let alone any agreement, it is now being proposed to ‘incorporate’ the three colleges into DCU. The three colleges would cease to exist in their current form and the incorporation is being depicted as a takeover of the three colleges by DCU.”

“We cannot be expected to be involved in any process for the incorporation of the three colleges, through working groups or other planning meetings, until the incorporation proposals first address the issues of the impact on staff and until normal negotiation procedures are put in place to address issues such as workloads, job security, physical relocation and governance,” Mike Jennings says.

ENDS

For further information on this media release contact:
John Gallagher, John Gallagher Consulting.  Tel. 087.9369888
Mike Jennings, General Secretary, IFUT.  Tel. 087.6776747.