Anxious parents, anxious students - and anxious teachers. The tension rises all round, and for a while there will be a coalition of effort between these three groups as the Leaving and Junior Cert exams approach.

The massive movement of the next wave of students through and out of the school system puts all thoughts of Easter and the teacher conferences well into the middle distance.

And very soon, parents and students will forget the trauma, and most teachers will unwind for their long break.

Will it be the same in 2001? The ASTI has left a question mark hanging over next year's exams. For a while in early spring, the public perception of teachers seemed to have taken a hammering, as a leaked document and a less-than-competent media defence gave the impression that union leaders neither knew nor cared about the anxieties of parents and students.

Comfort came, however, in the shape of an opinion poll in this newspaper finding that most Irish people had a high opinion of Irish education and most Irish people felt that teachers should be paid more. So far, so good.

It is good that teachers and the Irish education system are highly regarded by the public at large - even if some of us might think that the apparent complacency in the findings is not such a positive thing. Will I be forgiven for a tiny suspicion that the normally superb public relations machinery of the teacher unions (and more than two years of a high-spending and personable Minister, Micheal Martin) overcame the blip in public esteem for the teaching force which happened before Easter?

Is it contrary of me to ponder on the dichotomy of the teachers' hailing of the poll findings, while at the same time they spent the week after Easter at conference pointing out ad nauseam that the State (not themselves) is at fault in nearly every aspect of education provision, and giving the new Minister a rough reception?

Is all the population happy with Ireland's amazingly short (and getting shorter) school year at both primary and second level? Surely we haven't forgotten the truly shameful literacy record of Ireland as pointed out continually by the OECD.

The lack of any acceptable machinery for dealing with grossly inadequate teachers has to be worrying everyone, including the unions. The persistently low participation rate from the lowest socio-economic groups in Irish universities indicates another failure. The decrease in students taking science subjects which we need for the future - these are some of the negatives in Irish education which have to give us cause for concern.

No one is suggesting that teachers are totally, or even mostly, to blame for the ills of the education system. But as they are the most powerful and most vocal of the education partners, I would like to hear more from them about the worrying side - and we should hear it without an accompanying chorus of pay demands.

There is a grave danger of teachers, and all of the education establishment, believing their own publicity - a fate which only ends in tears, as politicians well know.

How are we going to put things right and restore relationships regarding pay? It is my firm belief that we need a well paid, highly motivated teaching force. To repeat the obvious: the hours that are spent from the age of four to 18 in the classroom are central to the formation of the State and its citzenry for the future.

Encouraged, enlightened

All of us want to think that when our children sit in those rooms, they will be encouraged and enlightened by a sensitive, intelligent and highly qualified person. We want the classroom and the school to be physically comfortable and welcoming, and the class sizes to be compatible with stress-free learning.

And we want our children to emerge as fully rounded young adults, equipped with whatever they need to fulfil their potential in this new millennium.

In that process of formation, it goes without saying that the teacher is playing the role of full partner with the parents.

Therefore in this first year of the second millennium, let us all step back from current conflicts and take a long look at priorities for the future. Let us pay the teachers considerably more (yes, 30 per cent at least) - and it can be done. A pay and productivity deal would not conflict with public pay agreements.

In return, there has to be, for example, an increase in the length of the school year and the school day where necessary, flexibility on in-service training out of school times, willingness to consult with parents at times which suit working parents, agreement on accountability and dealing with teacher failure, readiness to allow non-practising teachers to work on examination supervision, orals and exam marking. In other words, an end to rigidity and old fashioned confrontational worker-boss carry on.

We must, in my view, pay teachers a rate more compatible with the private sector - but this needs us to haul back from the situation which has developed over many years where teachers and the State have, in the one case, allowed and, in the other, demanded and achieved, work practices which have made it impossible to pay them more.

We all want people of talent to come into teaching, and to stay in it. It is nonsense to believe that this will go on happening if we persist in the current out-of-date attitudes from both State and teacher unions.

Gemma Hussey is director of the European Women's Foundation and former Minister for Education.