Work-to-rule puts principals in ‘no-win’ situation

PRIMARY principals have been put in an unfair position by their union’s work-to-rule directives because they have legal obligations towards pupils, a conference heard yesterday.

Among the directives imposed on Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) members, including principals of the country’s 3,300 primary schools, is a ban on attending staff meetings or parent-teacher meetings outside class hours, which may mean schools having to take half-days to facilitate these activities.

But Irish Primary Principals Network (IPPN) director Sean Cottrell told members at their annual conference that this unfairly leaves principals torn between their responsibility to deliver a service to which parents and children are entitled, and a directive that will reduce the quality of the service.

“This will not hurt the Government or the Department of Finance, it’s not going to bring back resources. The INTO has a right to tell principals, as union members, what to do in industrial action situation but we think it’s unfair to be put in this no-win situation,” he said.

“There are ways to make our anger known, things which wouldn’t affect the quality of teaching and learning,” Mr Cottrell said.

He said schools are already facing huge pressures due to cutbacks, leaving principals with an increased workload but still showing the leadership he said was lacking from the politicians, bishops, bankers and developers.

“Imagine the cross between Celebrity Bainisteoir and Fantasy Football, think of a primary school with Bertie Ahern as principal, Desmond Connell as the school patron, Rody Molloy chairing the board and Sean Fitzpatrick as treasurer,” he suggested.

“Then you could have Liam Carroll building the school extension. Money would be no problem as Sean Fitzpatrick could get a 120% loan from Michael Fingleton – and it wouldn’t even show up on the books,” Mr Cottrell said.

He told Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe, a guest at the IPPN conference, that a ban on promoting teachers to posts of responsibility for certain administrative duties is ripping the heart out of schools.

“I’d like to know how you would cope, minister, if every time an assistant general secretary retired or went on maternity leave or resigned, they were not replaced. Your department would grind to a halt very quickly,” he said.

Mr Cottrell expressed disappointment that no progress had been made to lift rules that preclude principals from working as learning support or resource teachers who work with children with special needs. The minister said his officials are considering the matter and will remain in discussions on the issue.

Mr O’Keeffe told the 900 delegates that almost 90 primary schools have been allocated an extra teaching post arising from the revised Programme for Government. These are schools which had increased enrolments last autumn but were prevented from appointing another teacher because of the increased pupil-teacher ratio.