Secondary teachers disappointed with last week’s half-hearted offer

<h2>Secondary teachers received an offer from the government last Wednesday that the executive of the PPTA analysed before recommending that members reject&period;<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>PPTA president Jack Boyle says&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;To be honest&comma; it didn’t take us long to analyse the offer&period; It is almost exactly the same as the last one&period; To say we are disappointed is an understatement&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The offer was last-minute and half-hearted&period; We don’t understand why they bothered&semi; they must have known our members will find it completely unacceptable&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Secondary teachers want to be able to bring out the best for their students and for their profession&period; The twin catastrophes of burgeoning shortages and excessive workload mean we aren’t able to do either&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;There’s a real sense of frustration that there seems to be no genuine commitment from the government to solving supply&comma; retention and workload issues&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The government knows as well as we do how to fix those problems&colon; better pay and working conditions&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>PPTA is holding mass meetings around the country for secondary teachers to discuss the offer&comma; vote whether to accept or reject it&comma; and figure out next steps&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The first meetings are being held today&period; PPTA will release the result of the votes after all the meetings have finished&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;