Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Teachers are all policied and planned out. There is a limit to what they can deal with. I was in the audiovisual room yesterday and I heard part of the Minister's reply to Deputy Thomas Byrne about teaching principals. It was disturbing to learn of a survey they had done. One aspect of it found that 89% of teaching principals feel adversely affected by the stress of the workload, the increasing mountain of paper and the onslaught of legislative and curricular change. That was what they said. They also mentioned there were 84 circulars last year alone. Teaching principals are caught between the two roles of working as a teacher and as a principal. They have to leave their class to do the work of the principal, the class is being left behind and then there are problems with parents who do not like that. They also earn less than deputy principals in schools with administrative principals. Teaching principals need release time and is that something that can be addressed?

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