Sir, – Norma Foley’s department’s latest suggestion is to rescind a teacher’s option to avail of career breaks in order to alleviate the acute shortage of teachers we are currently experiencing (News, December 6th). This represents a further deterioration in teachers’ contractual terms and conditions.
Over my career, many teachers worked for a decade on casual hours, a quarter of their career, with severe reductions in paid sick leave, maternity benefit decreased, a two-tier pay system, and fundamental changes to pensions. No Dublin weighting exists, the salary scale finishes after 25 years of a 40-year career, and there are few promotional prospects. Teachers are unable to fund a decent standard of living despite having a “good” job.
Many teachers avail of career breaks in order to freshen themselves up and experience new things which the classroom benefits from. They also take them for more prosaic reasons, such as facilitating childcare, caring for infirm family members, working in more lucrative positions to save a deposit for a home, and to try other employment to see if the grass really is greener, such as Ministers who are on a break from school while they try their hand at politics (“Minister for Education currently on a career break, Dáil hears”, News, December 7th).
Nurses and gardaí are in much the same position, overworked and undervalued, with billboards actively recruiting them to Australia appearing around Dublin.
Meanwhile, we see bankers campaigning vigorously for salaries of over half a million euro, plus bonuses, and talk of further support for already very well-off developers.
Where do our priorities lie? – Yours, etc,
NIAMH BYRNE,
Fairview,
Dublin 3.
Sir, – Minister for Education Norma Foley’s proposal to suspend teachers’ career breaks, at a time when forward-thinking organisations are reporting greater employee productivity following trials of flexible working conditions, is deeply flawed.
Surely in order to retain and incentivise more graduates into the teaching profession, the opposite strategy beckons: extending career breaks, offering more paid professional development opportunities, restoring qualification bonuses, and so forth.
Passionate, creative leaders in any field need room to stretch their wings, not be caged in.
Mind you, Ms Foley is herself on a career break. – Yours, etc,
GIOVANNA FEELEY,
Ashbourne,
Co Meath.
Sir, – The irony of ironies – a Minister for Education who is on a career break from teaching considering scrapping career breaks for teachers.
Ms Foley must be confident of her political future in Fianna Fáil.
There are many valid reasons – further professional development, personal, health and family – why a teacher might avail of a career break. Rarely is it taken lightly.
Only in Ireland could the removal of this leave be considered a solution to the recruitment and retention crisis in education. – Yours, etc,
STEPHEN O’HARA,
Carrowmore,
Sligo.
Sir, – Not so much a solution as populist stunt politics. – Yours, etc,
MARY BYRNE,
Dublin 8.
Sir, – Minister for Education Norma Foley would need to come up with more creative solutions than suspending career breaks for “new applicants”.
The elephant in the room, as it were, is that well over over 2,000 existing teachers are currently on career breaks, with many working in the Middle East. Given our housing crisis and the terms and conditions that teachers enjoy while working abroad, it is very unlikely that any of these teachers will be rushing home any time soon. – Yours, etc,
TADHG McCARTHY,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.