Minister warned of industrial action if further pay cuts

MINISTER Rúairí Quinn addressed the Teachers Union of Ireland’s (TUI) annual conference on Wednesday and its president Bernie Ruane, a teacher at St Patrick’s Comprehensive in Shannon, said he received a relatively warm welcome.
“He got a good reception. Delegates were very polite to the minister. They applauded certain parts of what he had to say. He outlined the economic realities of the country and he said that in relation to educational change, he realised it wouldn’t be wise to rush too far ahead too quickly and that he would consult with teachers and practitioners. He talked a bit about third level and the importance of having a very good third-level system to attract industry here. He spoke about the huge amount of money that the country owes and that the Troika were demanding that more money be taken from the education system.”
Despite this, she said the minister was told squarely that industrial action is likely to follow any cut to teachers’ pay.
“We did say to him, and I think all the other teachers’ unions also said it, that if teachers’ pay was cut again, they would be balloting for industrial action. He didn’t give us the impression that he was in any way in favour of cutting pay.”
She said while they were cordial to the minister, delegates at the conference were also angry.
“Teachers were angry, angry about pay, angry in the way that the general public are angry. They have fears around the system being dismantled and that with resources being pulled out of it, that it won’t be a good system. They were emphasising that education is the only way of pulling the country out of the recession, that there is no other way and that we will have to up our digital literacy.”
Ms Ruane said the treatment of new entrants to the profession is a major issue.
“The big issue is the way that new entrants to the teaching profession are being treated. The major issue is that it’s now two years to do teacher training after your degree. That brings it up to seven years, a degree is four years, then there’s two years and a career entry year.
“We said that’d be fine if it was like primary, where after it you get a job, but at second level you get hours. You might be working eight to 10 hours for another four years. People applauded when I pointed that out and he (Mr Quinn) said to me afterwards that he hadn’t realised the extent this is happening in the second-level system and that it is bad for education in general.”
The minister felt sharing resources is a way of preserving subject choice.
“We have fears around subjects being lost but he said it should be more about sharing resources, so you might have a physics teacher in a town who would take all students who are doing physics, that we should be looking that way.
“He wasn’t talking about amalgamating schools, more about sharing teachers so that students would still be able to go to the school of their choice but have excellent IT rooms, excellent labs in centres that would be shared by all the students of a town.”
Ms Ruane said that while the minister raised the issue of illiteracy, he didn’t lay the blame at teachers’ doors.
“He was on about illiteracy and he did admit it wasn’t the fault of teachers, that we do need a proper pre-school system in the country and that we leave it too late when these problems show up.
“He said the education system is considered internationally to be a very good system, despite all the cutbacks and that we don’t hear the scare stories about education that we do about the health system, for example, and that teachers are making it work,” she concluded.