Sir, – Breda O’Brien (Opinion, October 8th) articulates many of the fears that I, and I believe many second level teachers have concerning the proposed reforms at Junior Cycle. Large-scale reform at a time of large-scale cost-cutting is indeed a challenge for the Department of Education and Skills. The fact that it appears this programme is being fast-tracked with little or no consultation with teachers is especially worrying.
Ms O’Brien also tells us that according to the Teaching Council, teachers are “committed to a holistic vision of education which includes the aesthetic, cognitive, intellectual, critical, cultural, emotional, imaginative, creative, moral, social, political, spiritual, physical and healthy development of their students.”
All of this seems like a lot of responsiblity at a time when the majority of teachers under the age of 30 are working on temporary or part-time contracts and have little idea of where they will be this time next year. Trying to embark on a reform programme when the youngest, and often most enthusiastic and innovative members of the workforce have no job security and little incentive to plan for the medium- to long-term in their schools, will surely make any sort of reform even more difficult to achieve. – Yours, etc,