The Post Primary Teachers and Secondary Principals Associations are unhappy with attempts by the Government to reduce the number of teenagers who are not in education or training.
Government efforts to cut the number of 15 to 19 year olds who are not in education, training or work, are in the early stages.
They include paying for tertiary courses for up to 2000 16 and 17 year olds and funding 12 trades academies, the first of which opens next year.
But the PPTA and the Secondary Principals Association say the new moves are expensive and untried.
They say schools could do more for if they had more money.
But supporters of the programmes say school is not right for everyone.
Students involved in this year's programmes also say they were happier in tertiary study.
