A chara, – Dr Gareth P Keeley (December 18th) asserts that teaching, particularly at post-primary level, "is more about personality and the ability to engage students than it is about scholarly prowess".
Those attributes are not mutually exclusive and that both the weaker and the gifted teachers’ skills could only be enhanced by further study. Such further study should be incentivised by reinstating the higher-degree qualifications allowance for teachers. Furthermore, in response to his second assertion, might I suggest that anyone who has benefited from third-level education knows that the most engaging and effective lecturers were more often than not the most accomplished academics. Once again, the attributes are not mutually exclusive. – Is mise,
NOEL GUILFOYLE,
Glasnevin,
Dublin 9.