Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will get to questions in a second. I wanted to touch on that issue of performance management. Although we are a long way from the Canadian system, one of the issues with the Teaching Council that was highlighted when we were having the debate about the extra power that it is being given in the performance of teachers was that in the OECD research on performance management and whether teachers had received feedback from their principal, the Irish figure was very low internationally. Out of all the countries surveyed, Ireland was one of those at the bottom. Would the witnesses like to see us have such a strong performance appraisal system where the principal is freed up to play that role with his or her staff? What do we need to do to get there?

I want to ask about the strategy for where we go from here. We received some excellent presentations. I note there are other documents that have been sent into us over the past few weeks. I would like to see us as a committee put together a report on this issue - we will discuss this is private session. It is something that we should champion on a cross-party basis. We should be pushing on school leadership. Should we be looking at the reports that Mr. Byrne mentioned - McIver, Martin, McGuinness and Blackstock? Given that some of those were written 15 years ago, are those reports still relevant, or should we be looking to put together a new strategy, which is, perhaps, stepped out so that one is looking at the vision for school leadership over the next ten years, accepting that resources are limited at this time but at least having a clear strategy of where we are going, what an ideal system would look at and what supports we need to put in place to get there because this is a crucial issue?

If they were to prioritise one or two matters for the committee to champion on their behalf, what would they be? I suspect resources would be one of them. In the current context, and given the arguments that we have about the lack of resources, what are the two or three things that could still be done and should be pushed in the short term as well as, hopefully, working towards that long-term vision?