The Government has rolled back on plans to bring Leaving Cert students back to school for three days per week.
Sixth years students will join other classes in learning remotely until the end of January following a major U-turn in policy.
It comes after the country’s largest secondary school teachers’ union directed its members not to co-operate with the plans.
The ASTI said it was not consulted before they were announced and had not been given enough assurances that schools are sufficiently safe for students and teachers.
ASTI President Ann Piggott said: “The ASTI has repeatedly sought sufficient assurances that schools are safe for students and teachers at this time, in the context of the new variant of Covid-19 circulating in the community and the alarmingly high numbers.
“We engaged with the Department of Education and with public health officials today,” she said. “Unfortunately, the assurances we sought have not been forthcoming.”
The Government yesterday insisted that the public health advice still states that schools are safe places for students and teachers regardless of the surge in coronavirus figures.
Education Minister Norma Foley, who's the Fianna Fail TD for Kerry, said schools were being closed because NPHET advised the Government that the daily movement of people associated with keeping schools open must be reduced.
She said the Cabinet decided that by keeping all classes at home except for Leaving Cert students, that number could be sufficiently reduced.
The ASTI said it received a “high number of communications” from members expressing concern that the movement of over the 80,000 people needed to get Leaving Cert students to and from school is “not essential and poses a great threat to public health in the current context.”
It said it has directed its members not to cooperate with the plans and to offer Leaving Cert students remote teaching and learning instead.
