Mountain of paperwork ‘affecting quality of second-level education’

THE quality of education being provided to second-level students is being affected by the increasing mountain of paperwork faced by their principals, a conference heard last night.

Michael Parsons, president of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD), said the avalanche of administrative and bureaucratic work is totally out of order.

“I fear for my colleagues in a system that has only recently become extremely legalistic. Part of the problem may have been an identification of school as the place where all society’s ills can be cured,” he said.

“Yet we all know that the main business of every school is the quality of teaching and learning and the holistic development of students. The administrative workload is a serious impediment at present to the principal and deputy principal being able to act as instructional leaders.”

He told the NAPD annual conference in Galway that school leaders must be freed up to lead their teaching colleagues. Delegates will be hoping Education Minister Mary Hanafin will spell out a timeframe for addressing the issue when she speaks to them today.

She acknowledged the burden of paperwork faced by school leaders at last year’s conference.

Her department has received submissions from all interested parties since then and is under pressure to come up with solutions to the growing problem.

An example of this is the requirement on schools to provide detailed returns to the National Educational Welfare Board (NEWB) on attendance of pupils for the compilation of national records, as well as allowing the board’s officers to monitor those children with high absenteeism rates.

NAPD delegates are due to debate a motion seeking discussions with the NEWB on how to achieve more effective outcomes from their work together and another calling on the Department of Education to provide schools with staff and technical support to allow them meet their obligations under the Education Welfare Act.

Mr Parsons referred to a deep sense of hurt felt by principals and deputy principals in the vocational sector about non-payment by some VECs of administration fees for the supervision and substitution scheme.

“Our colleagues in the voluntary secondary schools and in the community and comprehensive schools have been paid this 5% administration allowance for each school. It is hurtful, objectionable and discriminatory that this matter has not been resolved to date in the VEC sector,” he said.

The association is also working to have principals included on interview boards for promotional posts in VEC schools.