Call to abolish Croke Park hours for teachers

A Cork teacher has called for the Croke Park Hours, additional hours teachers are obliged to complete outside of teaching time, to be abolished, calling them “detention for teachers”.

The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI)’s annual congress heard a motion from Cork’s Carbery branch suggesting that the ASTI negotiate with the department of education that any hours spent on extracurricular activities be considered part of Croke Park hours.

John Byrne, Cork ASTI Standing Committee rep told The Echo: “The Croke Park Hours were brought in during the years of austerity, teachers had to do some extra hours, some of which are given over to staff meetings, parent teacher meetings.

“They’re often referred to as detention for teachers – lots of teachers give a lot of goodwill and extra time to extracurriculars on top of their existing work day. Teachers are giving so much in class and outside, and then they have these imposed hours on top of that.” 

He explained: “We’re really campaigning for their abolition, having these on top of the existing workload is just overloading teachers, who do lots of other things on top of teaching duty such as preparing classes and marking.

“The government aren’t really into listening to teachers voices on lots of things, and successive governments have paid little attention to our case for their abolition.”