Earlier this month I stood on a picket line for the first time. I am a guidance counsellor, qualified since 1980.
During that time I have worked, like most ASTI members, in religious-run secondary schools. The religious, though now much maligned, established the tradition of a curriculum which went far beyond the bounds required by the Department of Education. It was they, aided by the staff of voluntary secondary schools, who added the many extra-curricular activities which have given our education system its reputation for quality.
For the most part, I have taught in an era of high unemployment and low expectations. During the 1980s taxes were high. Parents struggled to put money together to send their sons and daughters to college and out of the unemployment trap. The points system begin to govern learning in the classroom. But many new programmes were piloted and introduced.
Senior Certificate, the predecessor of the excellent new Leaving Certificate Applied programme, brought group work, practical skill learning and work experience to the classroom. The Junior Certificate improved the syllabi offered at junior level.
As a guidance counsellor, I watched Leaving Certificate students work incredibly hard, sometimes taking subjects they thought were good for points rather than of interest to themselves.
The 1990s could not have been more different. Senior students have had many career choices, carry mobile phones and rush to part time jobs after school. "How much will I earn?" has replaced the question "Will I get a job?" Teachers are delivering all sorts of programmes with a large variety of content; among these are the Leaving Certificate Vocational, Leaving Cert Applied, Transition Year and Junior Certificate Elementary. These programmes have radically changed the working day of the teacher and the classroom experience of the student. They are delivering education that is broader than the still points-driven traditional Leaving Cert.
Our schools are seeing increasing numbers of young students who have reading difficulties on entry. Some are neither able nor willing to learn. Teacher energy is often diverted into coping with this.
We are also seeing more students in need of counselling and directly. But the back-up services are not there, either in school or outside it . Imagine a day with eight classes in a row, 30 students in most, several unready to learn and some actively disruptive. With a guidance and counselling service limited to one staff member to 500 students, there won't be much help here!
During my 20 years in the education system, I have seen these underpaid teachers take time out to help students, working from an ethos that is as much about inclusion as it is about performance. It is this point that seems to be missed by many of those commenting on the current industrial dispute.
Within the mission statements of many secondary schools, the troubled child is as deserving as those who perform. It is second nature for teachers in these schools, en route to class, to halt an argument, correct a bully and investigate a trail of smoke wafting out of the loo door as increasingly nicotine addicted students have their morning fix!
What are the consequences in the classroom of performance related pay and accountability by league tabling of schools - the latter as suggested by Vincent Browne in EL? Any intelligent teacher would only do what is measurable. At senior level particularly, it would be possible for teachers to discourage certain students from doing their subject, thus screening out those who might under-perform.
If you were paid by in-class performance, would you release students to the PE teacher for games, to the guidance counsellor for a careers exhibition, or to the music teacher to prepare the Christmas concert? Would you give them time out to tutor first-years? I doubt it. This type of action will drive the final nail into a system which is under-resourced, staffed by underpaid people and supported by "voluntary" contributions from tax-paying parents.
Benchmarking means linking salaries of comparable jobs, and identifying specific measurable activities for those jobs. But it is not possible to benchmark the interventions so important in making a school day run smoothly. It is not possible to benchmark motivation, compassion, interest and care.
This industrial dispute is about pay, but more importantly it is about what our society values. Do we value performance or people? Parents and students should demand from the Minister a commitment to excellence which involves fair pay, better resources and the kind of vision which will accord education the status it deserves.
Jean Rogers is a guidance counsellor in Co Tipperary.
