Paddy McHugh (Galway East, Independent)

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this motion. In particular, I will address the part of the motion that seeks to put in place specific measures to make schools good places to teach and learn. I recently attended a meeting with primary school principals and deputy principals from the INTO branches in my constituency, at which they expressed great frustration at their current situation. Their demands are very modest, but if implemented, they would make schools better places in which to teach and learn. They would also help remove the extreme frustration felt by principal teachers in the discharge of their duties. The tasks that cause greatest stress to principals and deputy principals include non-educational tasks, paperwork required by the Department and other agencies, special education needs, conflicting demands on teaching principals between class teaching and school leadership, and lack of resources including IT, secretarial, care-taking, special needs assistants, resource teachers and physical work space. Other issues include people management problems such as those concerning parents, boards of management, disruptive pupils and so on, a new revised curriculum and the proliferation of a litigation culture.

While most principals feel these activities fall within their remit, with the exception of non-educational responsibilities, it is the increased volume and complexity of activities required to be done concurrently which causes the problem. Much of this increased workload has arisen from new legislation which places new responsibilities on principals without providing any new resources to enable them deal with them. I want to put forward a few proposals which would make schools better places to teach and to learn. We need to provide adequate accommodation. Clear roles and responsibilities should be set out for deputy principals and post holders, as well as for boards of management. Funding should be provided from central funds for part-time teachers and caretakers. A clear channel of communication must be set up between the Department and principals and deputy principals to eliminate their frustration in trying to contact the Department of Education and Science. I heard a story about a teacher who spent two hours in a classroom on a mobile phone, trying to get through to a relevant official in the Department, while trying to teach a room full of schoolchildren at the same time. That is chaotic and it is not good for our students or our teachers and does not help make our schools good places to teach and to learn.

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