Sir, – I want to warmly congratulate the Minister for Education and Skills Jan O Sullivan for announcing the reduction in the appointment and retention figures for one-, two-, three- and four-teacher schools.
I would urge her now to take this process a step further and radically change the process by which teachers are appointed and retained.
At the moment when a school reaches the desired figure for the appointment of a teacher on September 30th of a given year, the school has to wait a full year before the teacher takes up the post. This is ridiculous. The school needs the teacher when the classes are growing.
When the numbers fall below the retention figure a school has a year’s grace as it were before the teacher is redeployed. In the past, schools have lost a teacher due to a temporary fall in numbers only to have to reappoint a new teacher a year later. Why would you break that great relationship between teacher, pupils and parents for the sake of one school year? The teacher is going to be redeployed anyway so it would be almost cost-neutral. – Yours, etc, EAMONN KITT Principal, Ballinderry NS, Corofin, Tuam.