NI education: Minister hopeful teacher strike can be avoided

The education minister has said he hopes further negotiations with teaching unions will avoid strike action.

Northern Ireland’s five teaching unions voted for industrial action if the department does not address grievances over workload.

Paul Givan said he is “fully committed to reducing teacher and school leader workload”.

The unions said members were balloted following “sustained failure to deliver a credible implementation plan for the 27 recommendations of the Independent Review of Workload”.

Givan said the ballot was “initiated before the negotiations had commenced”.

“I believe that further progress is possible through continued engagement and I will continue to work with the NITC (Northern Ireland Teachers’ Council) and employers to find a way forward,” he said.

A potential strike date has not been set and the unions said industrial action could still be avoided if there are decisive moves to “ensure that workload is fully addressed”.

In June, when plans to ballot on strike action were announced, Givan said he was “genuinely disappointed” by the decision.

Of the 54.89% of NASUWT members who voted, 92.04% voted in support of strike action and 98.63% voted in support of action short of strike.

In a statement, the minister said he recognised the pressures on the profession and he had personally requested the setting up of a panel to identify workload issues.

Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster’s Good Morning Ulster programme, Maxine Murphy-Higgins from the NASUWT said the independent review on workload was “issued last November and we are still talking about the implementations of those recommendations, and I think therein lies the issue”.