Principals performing juggling act, says McMahon

New INTO vice-president Seán McMahon has expressed concerns about difficulties for principals in terms of timetabling and trying to divide resources to special needs children.

 

It is estimated that three out of every four principals of national schools in Clare have to juggle their administrative duties with teaching children on a full-time basis, very often in a multi-class environment.

“Principals are under extreme pressure, particularly teaching principals. The role of principal is like blowing air into a balloon; it expands and it expands but at some point in time the balloon bursts,” the Mullagh National School principal said.

He warned the provision of special needs supports have been seriously challenged by cutbacks. In the past, he said, the focus in the school was on the pupil and their needs. Now the focus is on the cost of their delivery.

“The allocation of special needs assistants is being done on an access basis, where the principal has to don the hat of Solomon and decide who needs what at a particular time.

“The administrative reviews are being done on a health and safety basis and not the educational needs of pupils with special needs, which are being factored out.
Mr McMahon was a member of the INTO taskforce which reviewed the impact of Government cutbacks on small schools.

One of the main recommendations of this report was the need to link with the different partners in education, the managerial authorities, the Department of Education, parents, politicians and to conduct an in-depth study on demographic trends in association with fiscal trends and availability of resources and financial trends.

“Since the publication of the report, that department has been totally immersed on the fiscal side of things and the need to make savings, particularly emanating from the Troika.

“Of course savings can be made but we need to look at these schools where they are located, distance to other schools serving the same ethos.

“We need to move away from the sole financial criteria. A school is viable in terms of finance, the community it serves, its peripherality and transport costs.”
Over the past year, the department has divorced learning support from resource teaching. Many schools in Clare have a scenario where a visiting teacher is coming to the school to provide learning support while another one travels to provide resource, he claimed.

This was in sharp contrast to the previous practice, where one teacher stayed in the school to deliver both learning support and resource teaching throughout the day, Séan added.

Mr McMahon’s priorities include tackling the pay differential for young, qualified teachers in 2011 and 2012, who are being paid between €4,000 and €6,000 less than their colleagues for the same job. He also hopes to try to secure more employment for newly qualified teachers.

Asked if the teaching unions, including the INTO, had to take some responsibility for allowing the pay differential to go through without taking industrial action, he said the original Croke Park deal only protected existing teachers, which was the interpretation taken by the Government after the deal was signed.
He said when this deal was being voted on, this was not made perfectly clear but he stressed the INTO has been actively campaigning since to address the unfair differential.

Under the current Croke Park deal, while there is some difficult pay cuts, it does contain proposals for equalisation.
Mr McMahon has served as secretary and chairperson to the West Clare INTO Branch and has been an active member of District 11 Committee since 1996.