Strike by teachers has been deferred

Strike action in approximately 120 schools in six INTO branch areas in the midlands and the Cavan area was deferred at the weekend following some budgetary concessions. Also it's been agreed that talks will be held later this week with the Department of Education and Science.

The strike concerns principals who must teach full-time and also be administrators, taking care of all the planning, day-to-day business and caretaking jobs in school with very little back-up.

Ciaran McKenna, principal of St Felim's National School in Leitir, Bailieboro, Co Cavan, says: "We feel that the issue has gone unattended for quite a while". As a teaching principal in a four-teacher school, he was prepared to strike. "The issue hasn't been accorded the kind of attention that it deserves," McKenna says. "This is a last resort. We want the Minister to attend to it as a matter of some urgency."

According to McKenna, who teachers 31 pupils in fifth and sixth class, "feeling is quite strong" over this issue. "I would like an arrangement that afforded me some space each week or month to attend to all of the administrative details. This whole area has mushroomed in recent years. It must be possible to introduce an arrangement that would allow teaching principals some time to attend to all of the administrative detail."

Patrick Ryan, acting principal of a small two-teacher school in Kilcullen, Co Kildare, says there is no office in Ballyshannon National School. "It's a two-room school and nothing else," he says. "That needs to be highlighted." As well as "geting someone in to help, you need other things in place. You need a proper office. As things stand, the principal is stuck in the classroom when someone calls. You can't do any work or planning."

Sean Hanley, principal of St Anne's National School in Baileborough, Co Cavan, is in a better position that those principals who teach in small schools without secretarial or caretaking facilities. As an administrative principal in a 240-pupil school, he says he has "time to get a perspective on things". There is time to plan. "More and more is coming to the door of the principal. In order to do them justice other facilities need to be put in place to help teaching principals deal with them. Resources need to be put in place to help them deal with them . . . For teaching principals the conditions are intolerable."

Joe Doheny, principal of Ballinabranna National School in Co Carlow, felt "the strike was very justified". As a teaching principal in a school of 80 pupils, "there's an awful lot of extra duties . . . The Minister seems to be recognising our problem and taking cognisance of them and setting money aside". However, he points out, the strike is "only deferred".

"The most important thing would be the time relief element," he says. "That we would have a few days to organise and plan, not to be taking time away from the children. They deserve our time."

Trudi Shannon, a teaching principal in Bennekerry National School just outside Carlow town, says: "You are depending on the good will of FAS," which provides her school with a secretary. "We have no option but to strike." With the introduction of the new primary school curriculum, which involves new methodologies and subject matter, school matters have become "urgent rather than important matters", she says.