Madam, – I am not a fan of Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills Mary Coughlan, but I thought that the silent treatment given to her by the TUI conference delegates was disgraceful.
They invited the Minister to their conference and surely they should therefore have shown her some basic manners and common decency. The Minister would have been absolutely within her rights to walk out having had to endure the humiliation of speaking to 450 people who refused to acknowledge her and many of whom were reading newspapers as she spoke.
It was a shame that not even one delegate had the moral courage to break ranks and acknowledge the fact that the Minister had taken the time to attend. If the delegates’ actions are indicative of the people who are responsible for teaching our children then the future for our country doesn’t appear bright. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The Croke Park deal is a non-runner. Would you buy a pig-in-a-poke? There are too many variables and uncertainties. The Taoiseach must engage directly with the social partners in order to avoid further economic Armageddon. Perhaps the teachers’ outrage is justified? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The antics at the recent teacher conventions begs the question, are the educators educated? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In the Editorial (April 8th) you struggle once again to understand why teachers, in common with other workers, are currently organising to oppose the neo-liberal flexibilisation of their working conditions under the unquestioned mantra of “reform”. The INTO conference, having voted as the Editorial writer desired, is credited with mature, deliberative decision-making. ASTI and TUI, having rejected it, are dismissed as suffering from an “extraordinary” absence of debate. For a newspaper that has recently called for an educational emphasis on critical thinking over rote repetition, this is hardly exemplary.
Examining why elements of the union movement are mobilising against a deal that legitimises the wholesale transfer of State resources away from core areas of social investment requires political analysis. Instead, the Editorial depends on the reduction of all areas of social and political life to an empty economic rhetoric – what is an “additional productivity demand” in a meaningful educational context? This is propped up with moralism: teachers shouldn’t protest against a drive towards insecurity and precariousness because that is what private sector workers are forced to endure.
In the event of a private sector strike, will you advise them to count their blessings and think of the starving masses? If you are serious about renewing the Republic, credit fellow citizens that organise against the delusion that “there is no alternative” with more than a puzzling irrationality. – Yours, etc,