Madam, - Imagine, it isn't quite Christmas yet and here is our own Mr Scrooge! Andrew Wallace (December 1st) steps straight out of the pages of Dickens with an attack on the teaching profession, which as everyone knows is responsible for our current economic woes, not the greedy bankers or builders or the head-in-the-clouds economic experts or our Government which told us to"party on" until the elections were over.
For Mr Wallace's information I have 35 years' teaching experience, including organising supervision for absent teachers, and in my experience nearly all absences were for sickness, pure and simple. The rest was what we call compassionate leave (a legal right, by the way). I know that in the real world which Mr Wallace inhabits there is no such thing as compassion, but people do die and children get sick and have to be cared for or taken to the doctor or the hospital.
Sometimes these inconsiderate people cannot arrange their deaths or illnesses for the weekends or the holidays. As for weddings, I will hold up my hands and admit that I got a half-day off to go to my cousin's wedding in 1972. I do not remember using or seeing this excuse since.
Regarding Mr Wallace's honesty lesson: yes, over the years I have impressed on my students the need to be honest in their dealings with everyone. Mr Wallace states that he is, or has been, an employer. Perhaps, by the same token, he could impress on his fellow employers the legal (and moral) requirements of their position, paying taxes for instance, refraining from pocketing their employees' PRSI contributions or subjecting them to exploitation and abuse "amounting in some cases to slavery" (Prime Time Investigates, RTÉ December 1st). All very Dickensian, isn't it? It seems that Mr Wallace has plenty of company in his real 1840s world. Still, there is hope: Mr Scrooge was converted to philanthropy by Christmas Day and there are still three weeks to go. - Yours, etc,
PAUL TAYLOR,
Woodpark,
Ballinteer Road,
Madam, - Watching Monday night's Questions & Answersand in particular the comments from the Minister for Education would make you believe that the cutbacks in the Budget would hardly have any effect on all of our children.
The Minister was allowed a free run on this subject and I hope that due to another Minister (Defence) getting a rough ride a few weeks ago, the Q&Ashow has not gone soft on Government spokespersons.
The Minister was not attacked for Government promises made in 2002 when it promised class sizes of under 20 for all children under nine, then in 2007 classes of 24 children or fewer were promised by 2010.
Because of the Budget, over-crowded classes will become even more packed.
Parents do not believe the spin that there will only be one extra child in each class. Only last week in our local school there were four children extra per class due to one teacher being absent. Many schools, I am sure, have more. Another cutback in October's Budget is that free schoolbooks for poor children will go. This beggars belief. Is it any wonder that the Government is crashing in the opinion polls when this is the type of cutback being proposed?
The FF activists on the show were claiming that the protests are about teachers, not children. People are protesting about children in the most overcrowded classes in Europe. They are about children with no English who from next year on will have no English teacher. They are about children who won't have a teacher next January because Government will not pay a substitute.
The protests are about poor children who won't have books next year, about special needs children who won't have resources, about children who won't have computers yet they are told they have been born into a knowledge economy, about children in rundown, dilapidated schools.
I trust the next time a Government Minister comes on the QA show, they are questioned a lot harder than the Minister for Education was on Monday night. - Yours, etc,
PAUL DORAN,
Monastery Walk,
Clondalkin,
Dublin 22.
A chara, - Watching Questions and Answerson Monday night, one might believe that schools have wasted vast amounts of Government money (taxpayers' money), using school photocopiers and school paper to inform parents of impending education cuts and forthcoming rallies around the country against these cuts.
I wish to remind Minister Batt O'Keeffe and his well-versed audience hacks that it is the parents who pay for every page photocopied in my school and the photocopier with it.
The Department of Education and Science does not provide for such luxuries in its ever decreasing grants. - Is Mise,
DONAL O'GORMAN,
Principal Teacher,
Limerick.