Teachers or babysitters — what do we want?

I READ with dismay the animosity being directed toward teachers lately. Perhaps if people do not want to pay teachers to teach, then they should pay for the babysitting service schools and teachers provide on a daily basis, 33 weeks of the year.

€5 per hour is roughly a 50% discount on current childminding rates, times 25 (the average class size), times 24 (the current contact hours each week), times 33 (number of weeks teaching) = €99,000 a year. Yes, please!

If the state does not want to recognise the vital role teachers in this country play in not only offering a world-class education to future generations, but also the economic benefit of facilitating a much larger economically active cohort, then I say teachers should strike and when this hypocritical government comes crawling back, demand double.