Primary principals are overworked and underpaid

MULTI-SKILLED principals of large primary schools receive about €5,000 less than their second level counterparts, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) annual congress heard yesterday.

The union has been strongly mandated to address pay imbalances and the growing workload faced by the heads of all 3,300 primary schools.

The varied role of the principal was highlighted by INTO education committee member Alice O’Connell, a teacher in Cobh, Co Cork who had been browsing the Irish Examiner recently for principals’ jobs.

“Initially, I was disappointed to see no principal posts but, on closer inspection, I found ads for financial administrators, a dynamic accounts person, an experienced site foreperson, a payroll administrator, summer au pairs, a delivery person, a crèche supervisor and many more,” she said.

“These are just some facets of the very complex and demanding role of the modern school leader, the majority or whom are also full-time class teachers. We hear much today about allergies and one of the chief culprits is the peanut, but it’s time for us to declare our allergy to the peanuts currently offered to school leaders,” said Ms O’Connell.

Máire Ni Chuinneagáin, a Galway-based member of the union’s central executive, said something must be done about the anomaly between allowances for primary and second level principal.

Both levels have the same salary scale, but there are different allowances for school heads, depending on the number of teachers.

For example, the principal of a 20-teacher primary school can get an additional €19,604 but the head of a same-sized second level school gets almost €25,000.

“The minister paid compliments to primary principals at our congress yesterday but she needs to put substance and support those compliments,” Ms Ni Chuinneagáin said.

Although the INTO will look for parity between its principal members and those at second level, in talks on the public service benchmarking process, Education Minister Mary Hanafin has declined to publicly support the claim as she wants the benchmarking exercise to remain independent.

Central executive member Declan Kelleher from Ennis, Co Clare, said the exploitation of principals must end with this benchmarking exercise.

“All staff within our schools must be included in calculating the principal and deputy principals’ allowances and a significant increase in allowances must be granted to take into account the hugely increased workload and responsibilities,” he said.

“Principals and deputy principals must be placed on a part with their second level colleagues.”