Principals to be paid extra €1,500

SCHOOL principals are set to be paid an extra €1,500 every year for working as secretary to their boards of management.

The role has always been fulfilled by principals in most of the country’s 3,900 primary and second level schools but only the principals of the 14 second level comprehensive schools have been paid for the work up to now.

The payments recently sanctioned by the Department of Education will cost taxpayers around €2.8 million yearly and will be backdated to include the last school year.

Schools have been notified of the new payment scheme in a letter from the department, setting out the qualifying criteria and different allowances to be paid depending on the number of students in the school.

All but around 300 of the country’s 3,150 primary schools have fewer than 300 pupils. This qualifies their principals for annual payments of either €500 or €750 — the smaller sum payable to those in schools with 100 pupils or less.

The principals of about 240 second level schools with between 300 and 500 students will receive €1,000 each, almost 200 with enrolments of up to 700 will get €1,250 a year and around 100 principals with 700 students or more will be paid €1,500 each.

National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD), representing heads of the country’s 740 second level schools, has been campaigning for the measure for a number of years.

“It was agreed some time back in conciliation between teacher unions, school management bodies and the department. The amount of work involved as secretary of a board of management is huge and the payments are a token recognition for the people doing the work,” said NAPD director Mary McGlynn.

“Each school board meets around 10 times a year but there could be dozens of meetings of finance and other sub-committees as well,” she said.