The Church Schools Association is accusing the teachers’ union of bullying and of “not having a clue” about the Church schools’ Catholic ethos.

“The association deplores the way the MUT expressed its opinion regarding recruitment of staff in Church schools by using sweeping statements and ignoring procedures as advocated in the agreement between the Church authorities and the MUT for teaching grades in Church schools,” it said in a statement.

It was reacting to comments by the Malta Union of Teachers, which said members had expressed shock at certain practices in some Church schools.

Earlier this week, the MUT appealed for a reform of the recruitment process in such schools and called for an urgent meeting with Archbishop Charles Scicluna to reform the process and make it reflect honesty, transparency and good practice.

It said it was not excluding action, which might include naming and shaming schools resorting to shameful practices.

The association said that such “repeatedly bullying attitudes” by the MUT towards the Secretariat for Catholic Education and Church school leaders was neither respectful nor conducive to any progress in education.It said the teachers’ union was once again proving it did “not have a clue about the Catholic ethos of Church schools when they frivolously latch it on to centralisation and bad practice in recruitment”.

The association said it was offended by the way the MUT chose to tackle allegations and invited the union to adopt a dialogical approach that respected the dignity of the profession.

The union said in reaction it was not surprised at the stance taken by the CSA, “given that at least two members of its committee lead schools that have been reported with highly questionable and debatably abusive recruitment practices”.

The union called on the CSA to say what measures it would be taking about its own members who were found to have “abused the recruitment process”.