Role of teachers in creating social capital is overlooked

One of the unique aspects of Irish education is that it develops social capital. Social capital has a par with economic capital. In most people's minds it is the more valuable, as it is about us human beings and the totality of our being.

We see social capital when people take to the world stage as musicians, when their creative activity resonates with other people's minds. We see social capital in Ireland's position as one of the largest exporters of software in the world. These are some of the fields which demand creativity and innovation. We see social capital in everyone who has the capability to make a life that is fulfilling for themselves and enriches their community.

Teaching creates social capital through integrating all of the intelligences to help young people to be self-reliant, confident of their own ability to function as citizens. Social capital is not solving social ills, injustices or inequalities. Yet, social capital provides people with capabilities that make it possible for these ills not to exist. There is a serious risk that it could be jeopardised by the use of benchmarking to address the teachers' pay claims. Forward thinking management is aware that benchmarking does not have all the answers, as is implied by its proponents.

The recent announcement by Government that it is to establish a commission on teaching and learning is a clear sign that it also has begun to question the blunt instrument that is benchmarking. The terms of reference of the commission will however have to, in "taking stock and in identifying priorities and resource requirements", ensure that the unique attributes of Irish teaching and learning processes are preserved and built upon.

The INTO and the TUI fail to appreciate that while everyone is clear about the outline of the benchmarking process, no one is at all clear about the outcome of the criteria which will be used. How sure are they that their members will not find that extra non-teaching tasks will be expected as the price for an increase in salary? If that happens, benchmarking will have destroyed the golden egg. Those who are the gatekeepers of Irish education will have failed to realise what are its unique aspects that make it so capable of providing the answers to both the social and economic needs of people.

We need to be encouraging a vision of the unbounded creativity and innovation of teaching, not loading it up with mechanistic activities, form-filling and endless administrative processes that try to reduce everything down to time, tasks and minutiae. We must constantly iterate that the prime function of teaching is to develop the capacity of integrated learning across a range of intelligences.

School students and their parents need schools to perform several functions. Each person needs to be able to develop all aspects of their innate abilities and intelligences. In Ireland, the broad-based curriculum as it has been developed and innovated over time by teachers is a key factor.

Teachers help students develop their skills of teamwork and co-operation by the teaching methods within the subjects and also by providing a wide variety of extra-curricular experiences. Much of this work has traditionally been done voluntarily and in teachers' own time.

Parents have been angry with teachers recently. Parents need to take account of two things: that more parents are working and that their work environments are not family-friendly cultures. Therefore much of the childminding and young people caring tasks have been pushed on to schools. Is this reasonable when educational funding is still on a wing and a prayer, often in the realm of raffles and voluntary contributions? Imagine an Ireland where every school has properly funded and run supervised study available to all students, where every school has a well equipped canteen providing good food for students; where every school has properly resourced home-school liaison facilities; where every school has psychological and social services back-up adequate to its needs.

Today approximately 80 per cent of potential students stay to Leaving Cert level. The government wants to bring that figure up to 100 per cent but, up to now, has not been prepared to provide the necessary funding and resources. A point is reached where the law of diminishing returns comes into play. To get the next 5 per cent of students to stay at school may well incur a resource expenditure of 20 per cent and to ensure that the final 10 per cent stay at school may well mean a spend of an extra 100 per cent. Getting this last group of students into the net is not just dependent on teaching but must take account of social issues, the unequal distribution of wealth and other disadvantages that face many in our society.

For Irish education, it is true to say its time has come. Now, as we enter and compete in the knowledge-based global economy, we find that modern companies want what Irish education has to offer. The Irish values of broad-based curriculum and a commitment to the development of the whole person are now being seen and, have been proven both from personal and economic perspectives, to be just that - valuable.

The challenge is this: are the ministers, Government and all who have charge of educational policies and processes, even those who recognise the worth of Irish education, going to risk losing the unique capabilities that Irish education has developed over time? It is these capabilities that have put our people and our businesses at the forefront of the newly emerging world economy.

Patricia Wroe is a teacher and chartered guidance counsellor who has written on different aspects of education.