MUT President John Bencini warned today that his union would consider industrial action early next month unless a longstanding issue over allowances for teachers was resolved.
Mr Bencini recalled that a few months ago the MUT lifted industrial action after having been promised that a government-appointed committee would look into the claims and come up with a solution by January 1.
However, with January 1 just a fortnight away, the union did not even know what progress had been made, Mr Bencini said.
The union is insisting that compensation for teaching grades should be raised as had been done before the last elections for other professions.
Mr Bencini said the MUT would not tolerate being taken for a ride and would discuss possible action at its next council meeting on January 4.
NO CONFIDENCE IN TEACHERS COUNCIL
Mr Bencini said the MUT also had no confidence in the chairman of the Teachers’ Council and may withdraw its membership.
He said the union was not satisfied with the way the council was being run.
For example, he said, while it was the council's role to make recommendations on the granting of teachers' warrants, there were a number of teachers who had all the qualifications required by law but had not been recommended for a warrant.
The MUT took one case to court. An Appeals Court in October said that the person in question should have been granted a teaching warrant, this had still not been granted.
Mr Bencini also expressed the union’s concerned at the number of schools still without heads and assistant heads.
The level of discipline in certain schools was far from desirable, he said.
He also said that a number of clauses in the 2007 collective agreement had not been implemented.
These included an internal call for teacher mentors who would help up to three new teachers when they started working.
Even though a number of years passed since the college system was introduced, an evaluation on the whole system was never carried out, he said.
This process was sorely needed because there were many teachers teaching at different levels to what they were trained for. This was leading to burnout.
Mr Bencini said that primary schools also still lacked relief teachers. These were retired teachers or teachers on parental leave who would come in for six hours a week and give teachers a chance to stop for 1.5 hrs a week and evaluate what needed to be done.
Applications for these teachers were never issued and teachers were instead being replaced by teachers of arts, music, PE and drama. This system was wrong and was leaving a total chaos.
There was already a very big problem because there were not enough music and art teachers in school but to make matters worse the few that there were were being used to relieve someone else.
Heads of schools felt they have less autonomy and were doing more than their job description specified.
Some felt they had become the caretakers of principals.