A chara, – As I and my fellow school principals struggle daily to find substitute teachers and special needs assistants as the Covid-19 crisis hits new record levels in our schools, the ludicrous system of Garda vetting is creating even further difficulties.
I have long proposed that action is needed to streamline the system. A Garda vetting “green card” should be made available to anyone who is deemed by An Garda to be suitable to work with children, in either a professional or voluntary capacity.
Instead of this, adults are required to have separate clearance certificates for every club, association or workplace type, leading, in my experience, to some people presenting with six or seven different certs – all except the one they need for our school.
This crisis presents an opportunity to end the needless, expensive and frustrating duplication involved in the current system, while maintaining the necessity for adequate safeguarding in our system.
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– Is mise le meas,
SEAN O HARGAIN,
Greenshill, Co Kilkenny.
A chara, – Clearly drafting in inspectors to help fill the places vacated by teachers on sick leave will go some way to dealing with the substitution crisis in our schools.
It will, however, have other benefits. School inspectors, recently denied the opportunity to visit schools due to Covid protocols, have been secreted away for the last 20 months polishing up their critical faculties. Requisitioning inspectors to teach in schools would mean that their superior understanding of progressive pedagogy would not only benefit their new pupils but they would have the opportunity to lead positive development in schools. Teachers would be delighted to sit in on an inspector’s class to see the latest diktats from the Department of Education demystified, rather than listen to a lecture on what to do better.
Inspectors would also be elevated from their box-ticking in the corner of a classroom, and they might develop a realistic view of the challenges in our education system.
– Is mise le meas,
MATTHEW HARRISON,
Salthill, Galway.