Courtney McGrail
The General Secretary of the Joint Managerial Board (JMB) says he believes Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan has made realistic concessions to the teachers’ unions with regard to proposed changes to the Junior Cert exam.
Accepting that teachers have a range of concerns, particularly with regard to being overstretched, Ferdia Kelly said “we all have huge concerns about resources” but the reality is that “the minister’s gone as far as she can go”.
Explaining that the teachers have got the main thing they had wanted, Mr Kelly said it was “difficult to know what’s stopping them” from renewing negotiations.
In a joint statement with other stakeholder bodies, the JMB expressed regret that the unions had not accepted compromise proposals, which, they said, “provide an approach to curriculum and assessment that will improve the learning experience of students”.
