Management of the Province's five Education and Library Boards (ELBs) said last week that any member of staff who had at least one year's continuous service with their school by 1 April 2001 will be given permanent contracts. The move is part of the term-time agreement earlier this year between the ELBs and the public service union NIPSA that gave term-time staff full-time contracts and benefits. This required the ELBs to recommend to schools that they review all temporary contracts with a view to confirming staff on permanent contracts wherever possible.
All school-based term-time staff not in receipt of a retainer fee - nursery assistants, library assistants, general and domestic assistants, assistants who work with children who have special needs and any other miscellaneous school staff - Jare covered by the deal.
Brian Booth, branch secretary for NIPSA in Belfast, said, 'At the start of the summer holidays in June management from the ELBs said some staff were not covered by the term-time agreement. We then accused them of having broken the contract. They came back within 24 hours and said they would be included.
'There are about 2,500 temporary contracts out of around 5,000 workers in the five ELBs. For example, here in the South-Eastern ELB there are 642 temporary classroom assistants and, of those, about 550 will be made permanent from September.' Mr Booth added that the only temporary contracts from now on would be the likes of cover for maternity leave or a special needs classroom assistant employed temporarily. 'There will be no more fixed-term, under-review, temporary fixed contracts - these will be gone completely.'
