Teachers in the Reading Recovery Programme have received an email from the National Literacy Agency stating that they will have to participate in four asynchronous forums and have online lesson observation in 2022. These teachers have already followed numerous forums to finish their Covid-19 interrupted course. Participation in these forums is quite time consuming, and with the workload, paperwork and the substitution of absent teachers required from Reading Recovery teachers, this work can only be done after school hours. 

The letter also states that this ‘support’ is obligatory as long as they continue to do Reading Recovery lessons. Such conditions were not included before the signing of their contract. This can be put down to another MUT negotiations blunder. 

Despite these teachers being fully qualified and having years of experience, the Ministry wants to make them feel as if they are still in teaching practice mode in addition to now demanding the extra hours of work.

For this reason, the union has registered a trade dispute and has issued the following directive to its members:

Reading Recovery Teachers who are members of the UPE are not to register/login or participate in asynchronous forums and online lesson observations. 

Should any union member have any further queries on this issue or any other, please contact us on 99946582 or 21221252/6/8, or via email at info@upe.mt