Sir, - In voting for "industrial action" in pursuit of a 30 per cent pay claim outside the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, one wonders if the members of ASTI are living in the real world.
Compared with their European counterparts, teachers in Ireland are already among the highest paid. They also work shorter hours and enjoy longer holidays than most. Entry-level pay compares to that expected by new graduates in planning, architecture and financial services. As for the pathetic comments that former students are now earning more than their teachers - I thought that this was the whole point of teaching!
I will admit that our education system is generally a shambles, in spite of some gifted teachers and some excellent schools. We have an illiteracy rate of over 20 per cent, a level that has barely changed in 20 years, and teachers want more pay?
Joe O'Toole (The Irish Times, October 24th) says that the best people to ask why teachers should receive a decent salary increase are the parents of school-going children. It is exactly this frustrating experience that has prompted me to write this letter. Why do our children have to put up with teachers who are absent from classes more times than they attend, who are rude and arrogant or just plain incompetent. Why should it be the parents' job to seek out textbooks when the subject teacher can't be bothered? It is too depressing to go on. If these people had to work in the pressures of the private sector they would be out on their ears years ago.
Teacher's unions display the worst aspects of the so-called professions: resisting attempts to introduce continual assessment to reduce the pressure of the points system on students; resisting the removal of incompetent teachers and the introduction of teacher assessment. A true profession is defined by putting the needs of the client first. Any body that jeopardises children's futures by calling a strike cannot be a profession. Those calling for "industrial action" should be content with industrial wages. - Yours, etc.,
Dr Richard Webb, Hollybrook, Bray, Co Wicklow.