A Chara, - It is with great dismay that I read of ICTU's support for performance-related pay. This appalling concept comes right out of the Thatcherite school of economics and has already contributed to the demoralisation and undermining of the UK teaching force.
Clearly such an anachronistic notion is of no practical relevance to a caring service such as education, dealing as it does with the complex lives of today's youth.
Our teachers are to the forefront when it comes to "upskilling", albeit on a voluntary basis, and while the time is now right to recognise their professionalism, the proposals purportedly favoured by Senator Joe O`Toole are, I believe, unlikely to do so in a manner becoming of a caring profession.
Teachers have been generous and creative in bolstering the education service through undertaking burgeoning administrative duties, unpaid weekend courses, new programmes, revised syllabuses and pilot projects without any financial reward. It is unlikely that tomorrow's graduates will be so generous.
Today's teachers have given sterling service in maintaining an under-resourced system and are surely deserving of a better fate than our UK colleagues. A professional salary, perhaps? - Yours, etc.
Sean Higgins, Former President, ASTI, Westway, Drogheda, Co Louth.