Ms Angela Dunne:

I am a teaching principal in Loughmore national school in County Tipperary and I am here today to represent the National Principals Forum. I thank the chairperson and the members of the committee for the invitation to engage in this very important discussion. I thank the committee clerk, Mr. Alan Guidon, for all his help along the way.

The National Principals Forum has been established as a grassroots campaign set up specifically to highlight the intolerable working conditions being endured by primary school principals throughout Ireland. We have reached unprecedented crisis levels of burnout and workload stress, as we attempt to maintain the high standards set in Irish primary schools, in the face of economic recession, societal, curricular and legislative change, in a climate of disillusion and exploitation of both our new entrants to the profession and the leaders of our schools.

Our group comprises both teaching and administrative principals from every single county in the Republic. Currently, we have more than 500 principals across Ireland actively engaging as members, and this is growing daily. Although relatively new, our group is well organised, vibrant and determined to achieve its goals by engaging with the stakeholders in education to effect meaningful and timely change.

We principals are keenly aware that we are in the privileged position of being able to influence and direct our school communities towards optimal educational experiences and outcomes for all of our pupils. We hold ourselves accountable to high standards of leadership. Ours is a very responsible and public position, which makes speaking out difficult, however we feel a sense of duty to both ourselves and our pupils to highlight our unsustainable workload, or else it will continue to devolve insidiously and incrementally to the further detriment of all concerned.

All primary school principals are under immense pressure from an ever increasing workload. The plight of the teaching principal is particularly arduous as this cohort of 57% of primary principals has dual responsibilities for full-time teaching, while being charged with the full administrative duties of a principal also. We are finding this punitive workload is adversely affecting both our mental and physical well-being. The system is beginning to haemorrhage some of its finest leaders as a result of this untenable situation. The committee will see from our submission a detailed report of the results of a nationwide survey we carried out in May and June this year.

The results of the survey are damning and expose an education system with school leadership on the brink of collapse. For example, 84% of principals have considered stepping down from their positions and 89% of teaching principals have had their health adversely affected by their role. Many excellent school leaders are being forced out of their roles, having to choose between their health and family life and their jobs.

It is also evident that between 62% and 91% of teaching principals across all sizes of small schools work an extra 20 to 30 hours per week in addition to their school week. That means we are working an average of 60 plus hours per week, which is way in excess of the working time maximum limit of 48 hours per week. As we struggle to manage our relentlessly increasing workload, burnout is inevitable.

The issues outlined in our submission unfortunately directly impact on the quality of education experienced by pupils in schools. Despite our best efforts they suffer from having their daily routine disturbed by principals having to deal with an increasing plethora of school management issues. The haphazard system of organising the inadequate number of release days allocated to teaching principals is compounded by a substitute teacher shortage. That is due in large part to the detriment caused to our profession by pay inequality. That leads to planning issues and inconsistency of curriculum delivery, and is completely unfair and unacceptable for all concerned.

We have been vigilant and diligent in protecting our pupils' educational outcomes thus far. However, that has come at a very high cost to our personal health and well-being and we are now at a crux. With school leaders overstretched, under-supported and under-resourced, we cannot guarantee that these outcomes will not be adversely affected going forward, under the escalating pressure we are experiencing. It is too much.

We have forwarded a carefully researched submission with recommendations of immediate, medium and longer-term actions necessary to improve our leadership system and protect the education system. The recommendations are the solutions to the crisis and require Government action and funding. As a matter of urgency we ask the committee to consider our most critical needs. The first is an immediate allocation of a minimum of one release day per week to teaching principals in all small schools to alleviate the current crisis. The second is to halt the rate and intensity of new circulars and initiatives from the Department and other agencies. To that end, it is imperative that principals are consulted and represented at discussions with the Department and other stakeholders to develop educational priorities for each academic year. The third is pay parity, which was agreed in 2007 and should be implemented for all principal teachers. We should be fairly remunerated for our work. Instead, the Department, our employer, is grossly negligent in its duty of care to its school leaders.

I wish to impress upon the committee that this is very much a national crisis and the future of the primary education system is at serious risk if the current trends around principal burnout and step down are not addressed immediately. Most worryingly, educational outcomes and the school experience of pupils cannot but be negatively impacted unless changes are made. Undervaluing primary education and educators in this manner comes at a very high cost to the education system, relative to the cost to the Exchequer of implementing the changes needed. This committee has the opportunity and influence to safeguard and prioritise the integrity of the national education system, and to save it from impending collapse. I thank members for their time.