Different Strokes

Teachers everywhere believe they are overworked, without enough time to teach a rapidly expanding curriculum in a climate of rising expectations about the role of education in both economic and personal success.

They often say that parents, public and ,media do not understand the huge demands of the profession, believing they work short days and take long holidays - they do not afford them the high status which education should bring in a civilised society. They tend to think that teaching is more stressful than other professions.

The situation is better in some countries than others. Last year's OECD study of teachers' working conditions found that Irish teachers of 15 years experience had the fourth highest salaries ($33,800) in 18 developed countries, the second highest salaries per teaching hour, and the second lowest number of teaching hours per student per year. However, Ireland had one of the higher student-teacher ratios.

Teachers from England did not figure in the study. Their unions strongly criticise a system which sees teachers reach a ceiling of £22,000 ($36,800) after seven years, with no increases after that for any teacher who does not get promotion.

However, a visit to two London schools - a primary school in a working class area and a second-;level school in a middle class area - appeared to indicate that English teachers feel themselves under considerably more strain that their Irish counterparts. There are three pressure points which are much less evident in Ireland; the constant changes in curriculum; and the ceaseless barrage of criticism by politicians and media.

The biggest frustration for teachers both from Myatt gardens Primary School, Brockley, and Raynes Park High School, Merton, was the mountain of paperwork which takes up time they would much prefer to devote to preparing lessons, keeping up with subjects and other pupil-centred tasks.

These schools have high reputations, both in terms of Office of Standards in Education (Ofsted) inspection reports and public tributes in areas such as discipline, special needs, drama and computers - but their teachers voice great frustration.

At Raynes Park, young teachers complain that they are expected to fill in up to half a dozen pieces of paper per lesson, all of which Ofsted inspectors may demand to see. They talk about working until 10 and 11 at night; and sometimes getting up again at five in the morning; their "incredible guilt" if they takes a day's sick leave, the strictly prescribed nature of the curriculum which leaves little room for creativity and innovation; and preparing children for exams against a backdrop of constant curricular change.

One science teacher at Raynes Park, a Dubliner who has been teaching in England for nearly 40 years, says since 1980 he has never had two years running without some curricular change.

"Teachers feel undervalued by all sections of society," says principal Ian Newman. "The workload might be easier to bear if the role of the teacher were valued more positively.

In striking contrast, teachers in two comparable Dublin schools see stress points far more in terms of disciplinary problems, funding shortages and exam pressures. Funding shortfalls are one of the major concerns for most Irish principals, even those with a real talent for fund-raising, like Dominic McQuillan of St Paul's in Raheny.

The principal of St Thomas's senior national school in Jobstown, Tallaght, Michael Murphy, presides over a much-admired school of nearly 600 pupils in an area of over 60 per cent unemployment. Unusually, he has successfully used his school's reputation as an "educational beacon" - in the words of one recent inspector's report - to raise money for most of the innovatory schemes he and his staff undertake; a class for dyslexic children; a full-time counsellor for children with emotional and behaviour problems; and a parenting room.

The stress points he mentions are the 5-8 per cent of pupils who are bad attenders, the small number involved in disruptive behaviour and the occasional aggressive parent.

Inspectors are not seen by his teachers as a particular problem. Neither are the occasional national reading and numeracy tests his pupils have to take.

There is some concern about the new curriculum. But on curricular issues "there is a fair bit of freedom, nothing is too prescribed," Murphy says. However, the social skills so vital for children's self-esteem and to which schools in deprived areas devote so much time are not timetabled.

St Thomas's teachers main complaint is that, although they feel they are making "more of a difference" working there than in a middle-class school and are appreciated by parents for it, sometimes the sheer magnitude of social problems outside the school frustrate them.

Ann Dunne, who taught in a school in London in the 1980s, says the main reward she gets from teaching is to see children from deprived backgrounds happy in school. Her biggest headache are the pupils with behavioural problems.

She much prefers Tallaght to Tower Hamnlets. "Morale was poor there, the job was not highly regarded. People used to ask `Are you mad being a teacher when you could make a fortune in PR.' The school was much better resourced but there was a very large turnover of staff, with half the teachers, all transients from Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, because of a shortage of teachers from England.

The deputy secretary of ASTI, John White, says: "Part of the problem for English teachers is that the Thatcher government saw education as a public service which was not delivering the goods, and tried to institute a market in education." This involved breaking up local authorities which allocated pupils to state schools according to catchment area.

"In Ireland there has always been a market. Parents have always shopped around for schools." His home town of Dundalk, Co Louth, has seven second-level schools competing with one another. "this means we don't need the abrasive, mechanistic way of judging schools by means of published Ofsted-style inspection reports and performance league tables."

A second reason for the general good morale here is the strong sense of identity teachers still feel with their schools. Ironically, this is partly because the relative lack of promotional possibilities has "diminished their hierarchical nature - good teachers don't get promoted out of the classroom into administrative posts, and the resulting relatively `flat' profession can give people a strong sense of collegiality when it comes to running a school."