Averil Power (Fianna Fail)

Senator Barrett raised the issue of the qualifications of mathematics teachers. I agree fully that all teachers should be highly qualified in their subjects. However, merely looking at academic qualifications does not give one the full picture. The Minister is taking an extremely simplistic and ill-thought out approach to this important issue in education. We need to look at the results in schools because it is possible one could have an engineer who only did mathematics for one year in his or her degree course but who went on to avail of every professional development opportunity since he or she became a teacher, who has a passion for the subject, who cares about his or her students who, as a result, are getting good results. Equally, one could have somebody wth a first class degree in mathematics who studied the subject for four years in university and is an appalling teacher. In only looking at qualifications one is completely missing the point. The Minister needs to look at the bottom 100 schools in the State in terms of mathematics results. If these schools are obtaining poor results in mathematics, are they also achieving poor results in other subjects, or is it only that the results in mathematics are poor? Are all of their results in mathematics poor, or is it only the results of students of one particular teacher in that school that are poor? One should feed qualifications in as part of the picture, but one should also look at other matters. One should look at whether they have been engaged in continuous professional development. One should also look at the leadership given in the school. One should look at the culture, the attitude to learning, and all of those aspects that make up a school environment. One needs to look at the whole picture. Personally, I am disappointed that the Minister is taking such a short-sighted and simplistic approach to the matter. I urge the Leader to raise it with him.