Sir, - The article penned by Dr Michael Woods (Opinion, October 10th) on the Government offer of payment for supervision and substitution had a very misleading headline which suggests it is a pay offer.
This is not a pay offer and indeed has nothing to do with the teachers' pay claim. Granted, it arose as a result of ASTI members' action of last year which highlighted the difficulties faced by school managements when teachers withdrew form unpaid voluntary work.
The Minister said he would solve this problem for school managements by the start of the new school year. He didn't. He and his officials had over three months to deal satisfactorily with it, but they didn't.
ASTI acceded to requests to continue the voluntary service for another month, but in the knowledge that this was not the main issue.
The main issue of salary has been postponed by this Government and that is what accounted for any disruption that occurred last year. To talk now of more disruption is pre-emptive as many avenues still remain open to the Minister and the Government.
The Minister's repetition that 25 per cent of the benchmarking body's award will be backdated to December 2001 is a classic sleight-of-hand manoeuvre, learned in the school of "three-card trickery", as it does not put any figures on the table. The Minister's efforts to put all of this against the backdrop of the recent changes brought about by the global economic conditions are also mischievous as this claim was lodged at a time of unprecedented economic growth in this country.
Threats of economic recession are, of course, real, but the one sure way to protect our economy and our nation against the vagaries of downturns in the markets is to upskill our workforce. That is why education must be recognised a key area for infrastructural investment. Our pay campaign has said so from the outset. Attract, reward and retain, is the message, as any human resource consultant will advise.
But who in this Government is recognising it as such? Who has asked why some schools in England have a staffing crisis, resulting in four-day weeks? Who has asked if it could happen here? Who has asked how we prevent it happening here? Minister, if you wait until you have a shortage of teachers before you provide a pay rise, you will have waited too long and this country and its economy will be the poorer for it. - Yours, etc.,
P.J. Sheehy, Vice-president, ASTI, Gorey, Co Wexford.