Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. As he has outlined, the Teaching Council of Ireland has a number of important functions, including to protect the standards of entry to the teaching profession; to advise the Minister on teacher supply; to promote teaching as a profession; to establish and maintain the register of teachers and to maintain and improve standards, professional practice and conduct.

In recent times there has been much discussion about the latter function since the Minister announced his intention to introduce legislation to give new powers to the Teaching Council of Ireland to deal with underperforming teachers, which I very much welcome. I believe it is good news that parents will have an accessible and independent body to decide on complaints and to impose appropriate sanctions. It is also good news for the majority of teachers who are good at their jobs. They have nothing about which to worry and can only gain from enhanced faith in the profession and its ability to deal with problems where they arise.

While we have only a few details in advance of the publication of the legislation, the Minister has indicated there will be a range of options or sanctions, which is appropriate. Until now the emphasis has been on dealing with problems when they become extreme and a decision needs to be made over whether a teacher is fit to be in the classroom at all. All of us in our professions can encounter difficulties from time to time that affect performance, and teaching is no different. People in all walks of life need to deal with personal difficulties such as bereavement or family and relationship issues that affect the quality of their work. It is appropriate that in addition to disciplinary procedures we should also have the availability of counselling, support and other services to help people work through those difficulties. Of course it will be also essential to have the right opportunities for people to reskill and to improve their teaching performance, and to ensure they are up to date with modern methods.

So far we like what we are hearing and we await the detail of the legislation. Perhaps the Minister can give more details in his concluding speech. He mentioned that the legislation is due to come before the Houses of the Oireachtas shortly. Will it be before the summer recess with the intention of having a system in place for the next school year or will more preparatory work be needed?

There was some disquiet about the public hearings. The INTO and ASTI have welcomed the initiative in general terms; the TUI has expressed concern about public hearings. I believe we need public hearings if people are to have faith in the process. It is not appropriate to have private discussions behind closed doors because there would not be public confidence in that. They also need to be structured to ensure there are fair procedures. I know the Minister has referred in the media and elsewhere to the Medical Council procedures and I ask him to outline more of the detail in that regard.

Getting away from the area of discipline, a key area that needs to be addressed is a broader performance management system for schools. The 2008 OECD report into post-primary teaching found that the percentage of teachers in Ireland who had received an appraisal of their teaching or feedback from a principal was the lowest of the 24 countries reviewed. We have never empowered principals to be educational leaders in the same way as managers in other professions. I know this has been an ongoing issue for the IPPN and the NAPD. They would like to see principals equipped with the time, resources and support to be real educational leaders and not just deal with administrative work or be worried about scheduling. They need to be able to support their staff as professionals and to give them feedback on their work. I hope the Minister will address that issue.

While I welcome the new system for dealing with underperformance, we should not just focus on that area. We need to introduce a system where teachers are appraised systematically throughout their careers. This would allow us not only to spot difficulties and have an early warning system for teachers in difficulty, but also to acknowledge and affirm good performance. In any working environment it is essential that people get affirmation when they are doing a good job. We need a more systematic and structured system for doing that. Affirmation is always a highly motivating factor for employees and teachers are no different from the rest of us. Everybody likes to get acknowledgement when he or she puts in the effort.