Sir, – As a student teacher set to graduate from the Mater Dei Institute in May 2016, I despair at the position of the ASTI.
Pat King, that union’s general secretary, lives in a world indicative of the public service mind-set when he fails to realise that teachers, and I include myself, live in a world of protected utopia unlike the vast majority of workers in the real world. His use of evocative terminology such as “lockouts” is wrong on so many levels.
Along with my colleagues graduating next year, we will be paid on a salary far below those of pre-2011 graduates. Do I recall a clamour from the teaching unions on the cuts to NQT (newly qualified teachers) rates? Were colleagues in schools quick to rush to the barricades then? Sadly no is the answer.
As a late entrant to the profession and a father of four school-going children, I value my opportunity to work in the classroom.
Mr King should reflect on his stance and cast an eye to the UK. There teachers are rewarded for their abilities and results, not because they are 40 years in the job. As with the private sector, workers are dismissed if they are not performing. Schools are monitored to provide the best education to those who matter: the pupils. Irish teacher unions appear not to have grasped the changing landscape of education.
The Government should look at a proper root and branch reform of the profession and do away with panels and other remnants of the closed shop. The nonsense of having to join a certain union, dependent on your school, is another example.
Mr King and his union do not reflect all teachers’ opinions and it is important that this is remembered in the discourse currently ongoing. This teacher worries about his pupils not his pay packet.– Yours, etc,
DEREK M REID,
Balgriffin,
Dublin 13.