TEACHER'S PET:Here's a surprise: with all this talk of Budget cutbacks and retrenchment, one group have secured a massive hike in pay.
Step forward those lucky people who serve on interview boards for teaching positions within the Vocational Education Committee (VEC) sector. Their daily rate for the task recently increased by almost 100 per cent from €153 to €282. Better still, travel and subsistence allowances have also increased dramatically.
The new rates are for retired public servants and for private sector experts who take on less than 60 interviews in one year.
Strangely, few in the VEC sector can recall anyone actually lobbying for the increase. Some suspicious souls have linked the pay hike to the fact that former Department officials tend to sit on interview boards for larger schools, while boards for community and comprehensive colleges are staffed by former Department officials.
But there has be a more innocent explanation!
Our piece on the troubles at CUS drew a huge response from readers and featured prominently on Joe Duffy's vibrant Liveline- always essential listening at the school gate.
Teachers at the school now want the ASTI to begin disciplinary proceedings against members of the Dublin South branch who mounted a picket outside the headquarters of the Marist Fathers who run the school. They say no teacher from CUS took part in the picket. Worse still, the picket line, they say, featured teachers from "rival" fee-paying schools.
The demand for disciplinary action is expected to be heard at the next meeting of the ASTI executive or standing committee.
Last week, a first-class boy in a Cork primary school headed to the door of the classroom when told by his teacher to "Bí ciúin! When he was asked to "suigh síos", he replied, "You just told me to be queuing"
True story - and it underlines why teachers don't need costly reports from inspectors to be told there's a problem with Gaeilge.
Next weekend, Batt O'Keeffe will escape the Budget storm, joining a trade delegation led by the Taoiseach to China. The week-long visit to Shanghai and Beijing is seen as critical in securing stronger (and lucrative) links between China and Irish third-level colleges.
• Got a scandal? E-mail Teacherspet@irish-times.ie
