Amid all the hysteria that swirls around during teacher conference week, one basic fact bears repetition. The Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI) is seeking a 30 per cent increase for its members and is offering no additional productivity in return.
It is making this claim at a time when the educational system at second level is struggling to cope because the school year, at just 167 days, is so short. The crisis is so serious that the Department of Education cannot run its oral and practical exams in the existing school year. It will shortly approve a plan that will see secondary schools close for up to five additional days around next Easter to allow for orals and practicals. There is no other space on the educational calendar.
It may get worse before it gets much better. Almost all the educational partners agree the oral/practical component of all language and science subjects at both Junior and Leaving Cert level needs to be expanded. The hope is this will help foster a keener interest, especially in science subjects, where the take-up rate has been falling. The Republic has one of the few educational systems that does not offer a practical exam in science - there is no time available in which to examine students in this way.
The short school year presents other problems. Parent/teacher meetings must be scheduled during school time, despite the considerable difficulty this can cause, especially for working parents.
Critically important programmes like relationship and sexuality education (RSE), computer training and physical education often struggle to find space on the timetable. Schools must be closed for staff meetings and training because the 167-day barrier cannot be breached and the long holiday periods cannot be shortened.
There is a way to end these difficulties; give the teachers a generous pay increase but only in return for a radically revised contract of employment in which schools are open for more than 167 days a year. The current bottleneck in the system could be removed if the school year was lengthened during the summer term. There would be more classroom time and more flexibility to allow the education system to respond more easily to change.
When schools are closed, the additional time could be used for staff meetings, parent/teacher meetings and school planning.
The case for giving teachers a decent wage is a good one. Teachers have fallen behind other graduate professions and have seen other groups such as nurses and gardai secure much larger pay increases.
But more money for teachers would also serve the wider interests of society. It would help to lift morale and ensure the best and brightest are attracted to the profession.
Of course, there are some hurdles in the way of a neat trade-off between pay and productivity.
The ASTI has rejected the national pay deal and will take no part in the bench-marking review which links further pay increases to changes in productivity. The other teaching unions, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) and the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) are using the "bench-marking" mechanism to press their claim for significant pay increases over and above the 18 per cent that will flow to their members from the national pay deal.
With the ASTI now set on a course of industrial action in the autumn, the challenge facing the Government is to find a formula where the union can take its place in the bench-marking review. This may mean the timescale for the review will have to be shortened. As it is, no new money for teachers will flow from the review until 2003, but a shorter time-span is required if the anger in the ASTI is to be quelled.
The Government must also look to its wider pay policy and protect the partnership model. It will need to get the ASTI, who rejected the national pay deal, back inside the tent before any deal can be cut.
It will be hoping the retirement of Ms Bernadine O'Sullivan from her one-year presidency of the union in August will calm the waters. Ms O'Sullivan has been driving the ASTI's pay policy, but her successor, Mr Don McCluskey is seen as a less confrontational figure. Ms O'Sullivan, however, will remain a very influential voice within the union.
There are opportunities as well as risks for the Government. There is the considerable risk of undermining public pay policy and the concept of partnership that has underpinned our economic growth.
But there is also the opportunity to reform the teaching profession with new conditions of employment for teachers. Teachers should get a better reward for their work but, in return, they must embrace the kind of working conditions and practices taken for granted by other workers.