Teachers start following industrial action directives

Teachers of all grades have started observing industrial action directives issued by their union in the wake of a breakdown in sectoral agreement talks aimed at improving the pay package and work conditions of educators.

The Malta Union of Teachers issued the directives to state and church school educators last week and are expected to culminate in a one-day strike on November 8.

The first set of directives started being observed today and these include no answering of emails and telephone calls. However, the directives also have an impact on students and parents since the union has ordered members not to attend meetings with parents, including parents' day.

Educators have also been ordered not to work on exam papers and IEP documents and meetings.

In a press conference last week, Marco Bonnici, MUT president, said that union would issue 50 directives for all teaching grades, which will be introduced incrementally every day until the strike.

First batch of directives educators started observing today:

• No answering of emails.
• No answering of telephone calls – the Union is excluding internal calls between educators from this directive.
• No scheduled meetings with parents – this includes parents’ days and parents’ evenings.
• No assessment reports or comments – this refers to schools that issue assessments with a report or comment.
• No SDP meetings – including staff meetings when students are sent home early.
• No work related to SDP – including work carried out during breaks.
• No PD Sessions.
• No collection of money.
• No use of Fronter or other eLearning platform – for example Klikks and Edmodo. This includes online attendance.
• No daily/weekly schedules.
• No work on IEPs – including filling in of documents and meetings.
• No work related to exam papers.
• No meetings outside school / place of work – for example training sessions for guidance teachers, meetings held at the Ministry, the Institute for Education or other institutions, meetings of HODs with EOs and mentoring of NQTs.
• No Class visits – if visits are held, teachers are to walk out. The only exceptions are visits related to progression.
• No College of Heads – including any other meetings for Heads of Schools in both State and Church schools.