MANAGERS and principals of Catholic secondary schools have strongly criticised the Education Bill for its tack of funding provisions and its imposition of an increased workload on principals.
Mr Gerry McCaul, from Raheny, Dublin, told the Association of Management of Catholic Secondary Schools conference in Waterford there should be "statutory funding for statutory obligations"; that, for example, the Bill should make provision for sufficient funding to carry out schools' health and safety requirements.
Even as amended, he said, the Bill did not address the hugely increased workload of principals. As well as their teaching and administrative responsibilities, they would now, as secretaries of school boards of management, be largely responsible for drawing up the many school reports and plans required by the Bill.
Mr Michael McCann, from Galway, said that at a recent conference an outside expert had told principals they had four options: if they were tired, to get out of the profession; if they were ambitious, to go for the job of director of an education board; if they were tired and a little ambitious, to apply for a post in the regional inspectorate; and if they were foolish, to stay where they were.
Mr McCann said the Bill would turn principals into "bureaucratic functionaries" rather than help them carry out their pivotal role of managing staff and curriculum and shaping the school's aims.
Ms Jean Geoghegan, from Cork, said the membership of education boards as envisaged by the Bill would "minimise" the involvement of principals, who represented 60 per cent of the second-level sector nationally.
The keynote speaker, Mr Frank Pignatelli, former director of education in Strathclyde in Scotland, said if there was money in the system, the first priority should not automatically be to marginally reduce the pupil-teacher ratio.
The quality of education for students would be improved more by the politically less attractive option of using the money to create a proper middle management tier to support school principals, he said.