Extra hours may be grouped into days, and will be used for non-teaching work such as parent-teacher meetings, school planning, teacher training.

The Equality Tribunal has ruled that CBS High School Clonmel was indirectly discriminatory when it refused admission to the son of a traveller family.

Work placement programmes for people on social welfare are to be provided in the public service, the community sector, and in the private sector.

An estimated 40,000 students from around Ireland turned up in Dublin city centre on November 3 to protest against increases in third level fees.

Minister Mary Coughlan is planning legal changes to ensure that unqualified teachers are hired to teach in schools only in exceptional circumstances.

Hibernia College is hosting a series of major events, including international discussion on online learning and a seminar programme on consensus building.

Unions and managers are seeking clarity regarding duties to be allocated to teachers during the extra hour required of them under Croke Park agreement.

The Education Amendment Bill, introduced by the Government, will allow the Minister to sanction the employment of non-teachers as substitutes.

As the number of full time students in Ireland reaches the million mark for the first time in the history of the State, new teaching positions come on stream.

An increasing number of primary school principals are retiring early due to the growing administrative burden and lack of middle management structure.

INTO president Máire Ní Chuinneagáin warned delegates that “economic colonialism may be more difficult to overthrow than political and military colonialism”.

Minister Coughlan told delegates at the INTO conference that we are not “out of the woods”, we have “more to do to stabilise our public finances”.

“You gave me the extraordinary honour and immense privilege of leading the INTO as general secretary for the last decade… I will be supporting you from the stands.”

The Annual Delegate Conference of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) was held in the Gresham Hotel, Dublin, on April 24.

Addressing the IFUT conference, Mike Jennings spoke of the anger and shame of Irish people, and the sense of belittlement of public sector workers.

“IFUT advises members not to co-operate with work load management or full economic costing [FEC] models that are not negotiated and agreed with the union.”

Kieran Mulvey, chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission, was the first general secretary of IFUT - appointed almost 35 years ago at the age of 24.

In a first for Offaly, the coveted position of Vice President of the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) has been won by Denis Magner, Tullamore College.

Talks are taking place between the Departments of Education and Finance, in an effort to pre-empt an “inoperable” situation in schools in September.

Two teacher unions have directed members to refuse from March 8 to carry out duties of vacated middle-management posts that have not been filled.