Teacher conferences - Interests of children are paramount

As usual at this time of year there is considerable focus on education as the various teacher unions hold their annual conferences.

The whole education sector has been undergoing dramatic changes in recent years.

So many young people, who would have been about to start families of their own, emigrated in the 1980s that there was a distinct drop in school going population during the 1990s. But recent years have witnessed the essential ending of emigration and the influx of hundreds of thousands of young people from abroad.