Budget cut will put young teacher on the dole
Jenny Ward has only joined the teacher supply panel in the Finglas area of north Dublin this year, but her job faces the axe with around 60 others this summer. The panels serve 212 primary schools in around a dozen rural and disadvantaged areas, giving them access at short notice to a qualified substitute teacher when a staff member is on certified sick leave. The scheme is being ended by the Department of Education, which claims it is not cost effective because the teachers employed to cover certified absences of teachers are not always working.
But Ms Ward said members of the panel work practically every day of the school year, supporting schools they are attached to with learning support and other services if they are not needed as a substitute.
“If this valuable service is lost, it will mean inconsistent and disjointed substitute cover, which is detrimental to the most vulnerable pupils in areas of high disadvantage,” she told the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) annual congress.
“The Government has overlooked the fact that little money will be saved through this cut, as the daily rate of the casual substitute will still need to be paid. The service is, in effect, cost neutral,” Ms Ward said.
Other speakers included principals at some of the 212 schools in rural and disadvantaged areas which share the services of teachers on the panels. They vouched for the time the panels saved them, with their counterparts often spending more than an hour trying to get a qualified substitute at short notice if a staff member is out sick.
Delegates passed a motion which will see teachers at the affected schools being balloted for industrial action next month if the cut is not reversed.
The poor quality of many school buildings, despite major investment by the Government over the past decade, was also raised in a motion proposed by Brendan Horan. The secretary of the INTO’s Cahir, Co Tipperary, branch said no school with a building application knows where it stands and has no idea when work will even begin.
Mick O’Donnell said the conditions he works in at Glenville National School in north Cork are unacceptable in the 21st century. “It’s impossible for me to teach 36 children in a room that’s 36 square metres. With a wheelchair, two computers and a special needs assistant, I can’t do the drama programme, and I can only do PE if it’s fine outside because we’re lucky enough to have a yard,” he said.
