Rejuvenating education - Pay rises cannot be the priority

THE teachers’ conferences begin in earnest today and, like more or less any such professional assembly, they will be animated by idealism, commitment to a noble vocation, and a passionate desire to improve our education system.

The conferences will also be forums for indignation, delusion, and an anger that may not recognise the reality of our economic situation or the indulgences that made it so very precarious. Demands for pay rises, the end of the public service pension levy and a roll-back on the Haddington Road extended teaching week will also be debated. Stern, threatening motions will be passed. Government policies will be derided and stymied through union censure. The Minister for Education will be cold-shouldered.

The education system, at every single level, has suffered tremendously in recent years but that does not make the sector in any way unique. Small rural schools, often the heart of their community, have closed. Progressive, empowering programmes have been curtailed, management appointments vetoed, pupil-teacher ratios disimproved, and subject choice and career guidance services have been limited. Special needs supports have been cut and the introduction of IT technologies, and the wonderful horizon-widening that brings, has been far, far too slow. Third-level college leaders have warned — convincingly — that the funding model is unsustainable even for current student numbers — expected to rise dramatically — yet they are greeted with a political silence that is worse than unhelpful.