KEVIN LAWLOR,
Sir, - A number of issues related to the Government/ASTI dispute still have not been addressed.
1. The Department of Education does not currently fund all extra-curricular activities such as music, drama and sport. Fee-paying schools have the resources to pay for these activities while non-fee-paying schools in the main depend on teachers to do this work after school for no extra pay.
2. All schools have individual discipline structures but most depend on senior staff to run some form of detention system. Again, there is no funding provided. In our school this service happens for two hours twice a week after school.
3. I feel that assistant principals and deputy principals should have reduced teaching hours to perform their management functions during school time. In particular, year heads who need to follow up on students should not have class contact time of 22 hours. Senior staff are vital to the efficient management of a quality school. I believe that older staff should have less teaching contact time but more administrative time. For older teachers it is the equivalent of putting a grandfather or grandmother in charge of young children all day every day. We would not do this with our families.
Like most teachers I hope this sorry dispute will come to an end and that the Department of Education will have the imagination to be innovative and forward thinking for the benefit of our wonderful students. I do believe that we have the right Minister to take the necessary leap forward as the dispute is definitely not all about a pay rise. - Yours, etc.,
KEVIN LAWLOR, Deputy Principal, Marian College, Dublin 4.