NAHT teacher's union industrial action underway

Industrial action for some school principals will go ahead in a number of schools across Northern Ireland today.

Members of the National Association of Head Teachers are taking part in the action short of strike, after they were balloted in September.

It forms part of a dispute over workload, consultations, support services for schools and Education and Training Inspectorate.

This means Head Teachers will not be engaging in certain administrative tasks.

Liam McGuckin is the Principal at Greenisland Primary School.

He told Downtown Cool FM why he is taking part in the industrial action:

"The job of being principal of any school in Northern Ireland is becoming increasingly difficult.

"The NAHT took a ballot quite recently where nearly 95% of principals decided that we need to take some action, short of strike action.

"We're going to have to take a stance on a number of issues, for example, on the idea of consultations or bringing in new procedures with regards school development plans and how they're implemented.

"Those are things that we can show the Education Authority we can't do that, we don't have the time to do that, nor is it affecting what we're doing in school."

While certain information gathering tasks will not be carried out on Monday, Mr McGuckin was keen to stress the pupil's education will not be impacted:

"As principals we will not be affecting the education of any children in any of our schools.

"We will not be affecting the relationships we have with our parents or our governors who are very supportive but we need to make a stand to show the Education Authority that we can't do our jobs as well as we can."