A sympathy for the small and marginal

FROM AN early age, it seems Liam McCloskey was destined to be a teacher and INTO activist. After attending Glenvar National School in his native Donegal, he boarded at Colaiste Einde in Galway - then a hothouse for teachers; his class, in addition to spawning numerous teachers, also produced three INTO presidents.

McCloskey still remembers the excitement of "getting the call" to teacher training college - St Patrick's in Drumcondra, Dublin. His first job was as principal in a two-teacher school in Donegal.

"It was in appalling condition. There was no caretaker, so the teachers had to clean the school. The classrooms were very overcrowded and the only teaching aid was chalk," he recalls.

He quickly joined the local branch of the INTO - the Raphoe - and Convoy branch. Later he was elected branch secretary and, then, cathaoirleach. From branch-level involvement, he progressed to district treasurer and district secretary of district three, which encompasses Donegal and Leitrim.

Since 1980, McCloskey has represented district three on the central executive committee of the INTO. "It was my ambition all along to the lot of teachers and pupils", he said.

McCloskey became INTO president in April this year, at the union's annual congress in Belfast. It was a fitting venue for a president who lives close to the border and is aware of the suffering and agony that teachers and other people have had to endure as a result of the troubles for the past 26 years".

One quarter of the INTO's membership is situated north of the border, he says. "Very often the only haven for children was the schools. I have great admiration for the restraint and the security that our members in the North have provided."

Coming from a rural, small school background, his main concern is - unsurprisingly - to improve the support services available for small schools. McCloskey recently organised a seminar for one-teacher schools, which gave teachers a forum to air their problems.

"The small school is the heart of the community and a focal point," he says. However, teachers in these small schools have to contend with isolation, the difficulty of multiple class teaching, the lack of a full-time caretaker or secretary, the lack of proper equipment and the lack of remedial services, he explains.

He pays tribute to the Minister for Education for retaining both teachers in the the 16 two-teacher schools which were due to lose their second teacher. "I hope that the trend will be continued and there will be no more one-teacher schools," he says.

A native Irish speaker, McCloskey was brought up in the Donegal Gaeltacht, so he has a good insight into the problems faced by Gaeltacht schools, including the lack of availability of textbooks.

Also, a considerable number of families in Gaeltacht areas have returned from England and Scotland, he says, so the children may have little of the language when they begin school. "It is a continuous fight to keep the language alive, and the onus is on schools to do that" he says.

Another area that the new president hopes to highlight is the plight of the disadvantaged, underprivileged and marginalised. In his inaugural address to the INTO congress in Belfast, he called for extra teachers and resources to be allocated to these schools.

"There are children with difficulties that should be identified early in school, and the resources necessary to help them should be made available at an early stage - instead of the taxpayer having to pay £45,000 for the maintenance of a juvenile in an institution when it's too late and the harm is already done."

He is also concerned about the education of traveller children and says it is absolutely necessary. Education, he says, is the only way to get out of the poverty trap they are in. More home-school liaison and preschooling should be available to travellers and to children in all disadvantaged areas, both urban and rural.

McCloskey says he would like to see demographic changes used to reduce class size, to make remedial help available for every child that needs it and to form a national supply panel of qualified teachers who would substitute for absent teachers (see cover story).

"It is completely unfair to parents and pupils to have unqualified personnel in schools," he says.

He is conscious of the burdens on teaching principals, and says that the supply panel could also be used to relieve principals of some of their teaching hours so they can attend to their other functions.

On October 19th, the INTO is organising a congress to deal with issues arising from the White Paper; McCloskey points to teacher education, school inspection, assessment and unsatisfactory teaching. "We are completely opposed to a grading system for schools and to the publication of league tables," he says.

He mentions the deal under the PCW which the INTO accepted.

The TUI and ASTI are still in negotiation, but McCloskey says primary teachers are getting restless and are demanding an immediate implementation of all of the matters which relate to the primary sector only.