The president of the ASTI teachers’ union Philip Irwin has said his union and the TUI are giving very serious consideration to revised proposals on Junior Cycle reform.
The executives of the two unions have been meeting all day today to discuss the proposals.
Speaking on RTÉ's Six-One News, Mr Irwin said the unions certainly saw the proposals as a basis for further discussion, however, he said the unions wanted substantial changes to them.
Mr Irwin said they would re-ballot their members when they found sufficient progress has been made.
The unions have yet to make a formal decision and their meeting is ongoing.
The unions had been presented with a revised document drawn up by Dr Pauric Travers who has been chairing talks between them and the Department of Education.
The new document makes some changes, most of them minor.
But on the issue of teacher's assessing their own students it removes external moderation from that process.
This is being interpreted by some members of the unions' executives as somewhat of a softening of the Department of Education's position.
However, some union members feel that provisions contained in the document are ambiguous.
The unions can decide to accept the document as a basis for agreement, or to put it to a ballot of members, or to reject it.
If it is rejected this is likely to lead to further strike action and closures in schools.
Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan has said that if the secondary teachers unions are willing to use Dr Travers proposals as a basis for agreement, then so was she.
Speaking in Limerick this morning, Minister O Sullivan said she had indicated this to Dr Travers this morning.
She said she hoped they would see his proposals as fair, which were put forward by an independent chairperson, and that the unions would engage with her.
Ultimately she, as minister with responsibility for policy, has to make a decision about Junior Cert reform.
She said this policy is positive for students, and students should be at the centre of all of this.
Minister O’Sullivan said she does not think there is anything further to be gained by strikes and that the current proposals allow them to move forward and modernise the Junior Cert curriculum, which for a long time has been in need of modernisation.
