Ms Joan Russell:

I will follow on from what Mr. Byrne said on the question about the education and training boards. The boards and schools were hard pushed to hold teachers in all sectors. We do the best we can in the contracts we offer to teachers. We give them as many hours as we possibly can. We must remembers that both schools and the education and training boards, of behalf of which I am speaking, are governed by the circular letter which is directed by the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003 in the allocation of fixed term contracts. We have to work within the governance framework. We are governed equally by the teacher allocation framework. We are not permitted to work outside our teacher allocation. That is equally important. What cannot be lost sight of in all of this is that students' needs must dictate. The level of student demand for particular subjects is what dictates the need for teachers in particular areas and the hours made available to them. It is a bigger pot than just saying we are not meeting the number of hours required. It would be disappointing to think any school in the ETB sector was purposely keeping down the number of hours available so as to avoid a situation where a teacher would be given a contract of indefinite duration, CID. I do not think that is the case.

I think it was Senator Robbie Gallagher who asked what were the three issues the delegates would like the Minister to address. Without putting too much thought into them, what came to mind first was pay equalisation, which I think is key. The second was support in the upskilling of teachers in terms of time, pay and grants.

Support has to be available to incentivise them to become involved in upskilling and I do not mean upskilling in terms of a master's degree or career progression. I am talking about upskilling in terms of content, pedagogy, their initial subject area or others akin to it. We need to raise the profile of teaching in recognition of the work teachers do. I have been out of teaching since 2003, but I am tired of picking up newspapers and seeing teachers get a battering, even though they are doing absolutely amazing work to implement the constant raft of changes coming from the Department of Education and Skills. I have suggested three things that could raise the profile of teaching as a career choice and ask the Minister to address them.