Delegates representing the country's 60,000 school teachers gathered today for their annual trade union conferences.
Issues debated included student misbehaviour, class sizes and the funding of education.
The Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, will address delegates from all three unions. This morning she addressed the INTO conference in Killarney in Co Kerry.
School discipline and how to deal with the growing minority of unruly students is a big issue with the two second-level unions.
ASTI & TUI
This week ASTI and TUI members will debate the minister's plans to address the problem. The unions are concerned that new measures being put in place by Ms Hanafin will not go far enough.
Speaking earlier on RTÉ Radio, Ms Hanafin said her department had begun to recruit behavioural support teams to work with schools and teachers who are encountering disruptive students.
She also said she will change legislation to reflect that the rights of the majority have to be upheld. However, she said she did not want to make it too easy to expel disruptive students.
Concerns for foreign students
Meanwhile, the TUI has issued a list of recommendations which it describes as imperative in meeting the challenge of dealing with the increasing number of foreign students.
The union says that not all teachers are properly trained in teaching English as a second language and there is no standardised test customised for Irish schools to ascertain foreign students level of English.
The TUI, which is holding its annual conference in Tralee, Co Kerry, also says there is invariably an assumption that the student is beginning 'from scratch' with any curriculum, regardless of prior education.
It believes that the authorities have been heavy-handed and insensitive in dealing with deportations of students and that this has been traumatic for the school community.
INTO
Elsewhere, the General Secretary of the primary teachers' union, the INTO, has called on the Government to appoint an extra 200 teachers to reduce class sizes.
John Carr said a quarter of all primary school pupils are in classes of 30 or more.
Ms Hanafin said there are 4,000 more primary teachers in schools now than there were in 2002.
The union is holding its annual conference in Killarney, Co Kerry.
