Madam, – I refer to the extraordinary articles (Education Today, October 20th) attacking teachers by Kevin O’Brien and Dr Edward Walsh – the former characterised by overweening envy and the latter characterised by the settling of old scores and the selective use of statistics.
Mr O’Brien is an Irishman who teaches in England and who seems to glory in his “paltry” salary; he is “irked” by the fact that increments are paid automatically in Ireland; he boasts about his “75 compulsory faculty and departmental meetings” per year, and so on.
One would expect that a consequence of all this Stakhanovite endeavour would be that the English system would outperform the Irish system in international surveys. But this is not the case. In the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment surveys, Ireland significantly outperforms the UK in literacy; we are both significantly above average in science and are at the OECD average in mathematics. Mr O’Brien’s 75 meetings seemed to produce little additionality. Furthermore, does Mr O’Brien ever ask himself the question as to why the various British local education authorities advertise so extensively for Irish teachers?
It is, of course, because the very workload (75 meetings, etc) that Mr O’Brien so praises and the “paltry” salary offered in the UK do not attract sufficient English graduates.
Dr Walsh refers to his inability, when he was chairman of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, to achieve his aims, which were essentially to transform the Irish education system into the wonderful system described by Mr O’Brien, with its “paltry” salary, 75 meetings and bureaucratic control.
Dr Walsh states that the average teaching year in Ireland of 735 hours is 40 per cent less than the OECD average. The reality for Irish second-level teachers is that they are in their classrooms teaching their pupils for significantly longer hours than their OECD counterparts; 735 hours for Irish second-level teachers, as opposed to the OECD average for upper secondary level of 653 and lower secondary level of 709.
It is in the classroom that the real activity of learning takes place and it is against this statistic that teachers should be judged, not on how many meetings they attended. In addition to classroom teaching, Irish second-level teachers engage in a wide variety of duties, including class preparation, setting and marking homework, subject planning and pastoral care activities and these are not included in the statistics used by Dr Walsh.
Extracurricular activities such as sports, debates, choirs, etc, are provided by Irish teachers way beyond any rigid potential contractual requirement.
Irish teachers welcome accountability and evaluation but there is a difference between accountability and the debilitating, neo-liberal surveillance which Dr Walsh advocates.
I believe that ensuring the teaching profession continues to attract high-quality graduates is important for Irish education. The vision of education with its “paltry” salary and “75 faculty and departmental meetings” per year will not prove enticing and the ASTI will continue to oppose this failed neo-liberal vision. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – As I browsed through the weekly education section, I was forced to check that this was, indeed, The Irish Times, and this was, in fact, Tuesday. I felt for a moment that I was reading a different newspaper, one notorious for its lack of balance when it comes to coverage of the public service in general and the pay and conditions of teachers in particular. Have you too joined the Sunday Independent teacher-bashing fraternity, or is this open season? – Yours, etc,