Procedures to tackle teacher under-performance

PROCEDURES to deal with teachers whose performance is below standard should be in place by the start of the next school year, the Irish Examiner has learned.

Discussions between teacher unions, the Department of Education and school management organisations began a year ago after the Towards 2016 social partnership deal committed them to revising systems for dealing with under-performing school staff.

While progress has been slow, education sources said progress has been made and procedures should be finalised by next September. The procedures were due to be in place a year earlier, but talks stalled over difficulties among teachers with the department’s demand that principals be given responsibility for dealing with under-performance.

However, it is believed that any deal will involve a role for department inspectors in assessing professional performance before any disciplinary action can be taken.

The talks are continuing as comments by former

Attorney General and ex-EU Commissioner Peter Sutherland about “‘bad teachers”’ angered unions.

In the recently-published book Ireland’s Economic Success, he said that bad teachers are seldom dismissed and are protected for life by unions and the lack of an independent assessment.

“In relation to teaching at second level, there is a serious problem. Only a handful of non-performing teachers have been fired in the past 10 years in Ireland,” said Mr Sutherland, chairman of BP and Goldman Sachs International.

He said he knows few people who do not have a serious complaint about some teachers’ capacity in schools for their children.

“Teachers should be admired and properly paid but they should also be measured in performance and those who are seriously deficient can not be protected for life. They are at the moment,” Mr Sutherland said.

The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland welcomed his comments that teachers should be the most honoured profession and should be relatively high-paid.

“You rarely hear outcries about under-performing solicitors in the public service, or under-performing civil servants, and you have to ask why. It’s because teachers are at the cutting edge and if there are any deficiencies in their performance it becomes clear very quickly,” said ASTI general secretary John White.

“They are dealing with young people with anti-authority views, drink and drug problems, and social breakdown. Any second level teacher has been deemed suitable by a university but they also need ongoing supports and training,” he said.