Some principal teachers in voluntary secondary schools end up having to clean out toilets and empty wastebins, the president of the Secondary Schools Principals' Association of Ireland, Ms Maura Mooney, claimed yesterday.
Speaking at her organisation's conference in Tullamore, Co Offaly, she said that lack of funding from the State meant that many of the statutory obligations imposed on them under the 1998 Education Act could not be met.
Ms Mooney, who is principal of a north Dublin school, said that the State gave a contribution of £100 per student to voluntary schools, £157 to community schools and £175 to vocational schools. This meant that many voluntary schools could not employ secretarial back-up for the principal, or caretakers, and the burden of those jobs was falling on school principals.
"A number of schools advertised for principals during this year, and we noted that they had to be readvertised. A number of jobs were advertised for the third time because of the reluctance of teachers to take them up," she said.
Principals at the conference, she said, had expressed their opposition to demands that a league table of Leaving Certificate results be published.
The conference had been addressed by Dr Emer Smyth, research officer with the ESRI, on her study of Leaving Certificate results in Irish schools.
"There was broad agreement from the floor that Leaving Certificate results should not be published `raw'. They must be explained and put into context, because they tell you nothing about the school," she said.
"We have no problem with Leaving Cert tables being published as long as they show the ability of the student at point of intake, i.e. the Junior Cert results."