ASTI General Secretary Pat King has said secondary school teachers are totally opposed to internal assessment as part of the Junior Cert exam.

Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan earlier today urged teachers to come back to the negotiating table. Ms O’Sulivan said she offered a “very significant proposal” which, she argued was, “in some way the best of both worlds.”

However, Mr King said there is “no such thing as partial objectivity” when it comes to assessing students.

“We’re opposed to that and as long as that’s on the table, we’ll be in dispute with the minister,” he said.

“We’ve said time and time again, there’s no such thing as partial objectivity when you’re obsessing students. They’re entitled to objectivity and independence or they’re not, and you can’t have an in-between objectivity,” he added.