The Union of Professional Educators (UPE) has accused superior staff members within church schools of 'harassing' the union's members and stopping them from 'exercising their right of association' and hence not allowing them to follow the union's directives.

As a result, the UPE has decided to extend further directives applicable to teachers and educators working at church schools.

The directives were initially issued in late September due to concerns put forward by union members affecting their working conditions and work-life balance.

Those directives included educators not being obliged to answer emails and communications outside of school hours, and for LSEs to not type up IEP or MAP documents.

The UPE said that the dispute with the secretariat of Catholic Education was a serious one and that notwithstanding their will to talk, the situation highlighted some ten days ago by the union still persists.

As a result further directives were issued, as listed hereunder:

1) LSE's are not to be taken out of class to replace sick or unavailable LSE's with students having a 1-1 statement. This is unfair on the shared student as they won't fully benefit from their entitlement. 

2) Teachers & LSE's are to attend IEP's (Individual Educational Program) / MAP (End of year report) sessions only if the Secretariat of Catholic Education's HOD (Head of Department) in inclusion is present.   

3) Teachers who have a working load of 25 lessons are not be given extra duties; 

a) They are not to attend any subject meetings

b) They are not to be involved in SDP group duties

c) They are not to be assigned posts of special duties like that of Form Teacher or Assistant Form Teacher duties