Parity of pay - Teachers need to be valued

“Teachers are the primary asset of the Irish education sector and should be paid a fair and living wage” Discuss.

How about that for a Leaving Cert essay?

Considering all the resources that go into changing and improving the curriculum; all the money spent on technology and all the consideration given to exploring different models of teaching, the one constant factor in the classroom that makes children succeed is having a good teacher.

That means a teacher who can engage with their pupils, help them, encourage them and even inspire them. Not one who is so badly paid that he or she can barely concentrate in the classroom themselves, let alone ensure their pupils do.

As the conferences of teacher unions progress, the issue of pay equality remains high on the agenda. But the real issue for many younger teachers is that of a living wage.

Even if hourly pay equality emerges, any teacher on short-hour contracts will still not be receiving enough to live on.

That means that many of them have to look for other sources of income and spend a lot of their time thinking about paying their rent or mortgage.

Equality — either pay, gender or in other ways — should never be about shared misery. It should be about respect for what is precious to us as a nation and as a society.

If children are precious, so are their teachers. That is a lesson the Government must learn.