Northern Ireland's teachers were "at breaking point" in the face of an ever-increasing workload, delegates at the Ulster Teachers' Union's annual conference in Newcastle, Co Down, heard yesterday.
Mr Alistair Orr, the UTU's president and principal of Edwards Primary School in Castlederg, Co Tyrone, told members he hoped the North's new Assembly would deal with the "bureaucratic overload" in teaching. "If teachers are worn down by the pressures of unnecessary bureaucracy then they cannot give their best in the classroom and provide the quality of leadership to which they would aspire," he told the 100 or so delegates.
Referring to a survey and report jointly produced with the Irish National Teachers' Organisation last year, Mr Orr said the findings confirmed teachers' perceptions, North and South, of an ever-growing list of "form-filling, record-keeping, codes of practice, assessments and additional coursework". He went on to say that the statistics regarding the early retirement of teaching principals were "alarming".
"Teachers are leaving the profession or they retire at a much earlier age. The role of the teaching principal is fast becoming an impossible one. And although many small school principals valiantly strive to do the impossible, they find the task becomes so overwhelming that they eventually suffer from burn-out," the union president added.
Mr Orr denied, however, that the alleged bullying of young teachers by senior staff and pupils was another reason so many left the profession. "While I am aware of the most recent report [published at the Teachers' Union of Ireland conference in Dublin earlier this week, stating that as many as 43 per cent of TUI members had been bullied] I cannot say that this has so far been a significant problem in Northern Ireland." UTU delegates said they would be lobbying to abolish the much-hated 11-plus exam (which determines whether pupils will be admitted to grammar schools or have to attend secondary schools), which led to many children "feeling failures for the rest of their lives".
"We believe there should be some other form of selection that is more equitable," he said. "This is an exam where the failure rate is 70 per cent. Never again in their lives - even as far as university level - would a student be asked to sit an exam with such a high failure rate," the UTU president added.
Conference participants were told the UTU was hoping to "forge a strong working relationship" with the Assembly. "The Assembly, by being local, will have an opportunity to look at local needs. As its decisions will affect every child, every school and every teacher, the UTU wants to be genuine partners with the elected members of the Assembly and looks forward to a meaningful partnership," Mr Orr said.