Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is welcome to the House this afternoon. I should begin by saying that when the Teaching Council first entered into my profession it was probably one of the most hated institutions ever formed in the State. It is my hope that over time, teachers will embrace the Teaching Council and see it for what it is, the professionalisation of teachers. I, for one, am happy to be a member of the Teaching Council and will happily pay my fee although I have had some questions down the years at the amount of money I have to pay to be registered with the Teaching Council. I understand the council has a war chest now of some €13 million which I hope is not going to be used purely to discipline teachers.

A reference was made to the construct of the Teaching Council and the number of teachers represented on it. I reject any suggestion that this is in some way wrong. I recently visited Finland and one of the aspects which impressed me highly was how the profession regulated itself and how being a teacher and being held in high esteem in the community was something teachers welcomed and they themselves sought for the highest of standards.

I am concerned about the issue of the registration fee. In the good old days when the Teaching Council started, we used to have deduction at source whereby one could pay the registration fee by deduction from salary over the year. This disappeared for some reason and this was a regressive decision. I had been able to sign my deduction at source form at the commencement of my registration and I could then forget about it. We need to re-examine this method of payment because it would ensure that no teacher falls foul of the system for not having paid the fee.

While I support this Bill I intend to table some amendments. The Minister has rejected amendments in the other House but we will try again. Some of the language used in the Bill is weak or vague. My colleagues, Deputy Boyd Barrett and Deputy Coppinger tried to influence the Minister's thinking on some of the language and I will have another go when the time comes on Committee Stage.

There has been a lot of talk about poor performance by teachers. My colleague, Senator Walsh, referred to the system whereby one teacher has an honours class and another teacher has a very poorly performing pass class. In some cases schools cream and stream by putting the better students into one particular group and the poorer performing students into another group. I am not so sure it is such a bad idea. There are arguments that contend there should be cross-pollination within the class and mixed ability. There are arguments for and against both approaches. However, I would never blame the teacher because a class performed badly. It may be the fault of the teacher but it is not necessarily the case and it is not the default position. It is my belief that most teachers set out every day to do the best job they can. Every now and then we have a bad year and if we have a bad year maybe we do not perform as well as we should and in that case the system has to have a way of supporting a teacher who, for one reason or another, dropped below par.

I sincerely hope we are not hoping to develop in the country a sort of Stepford wives solution to education where we have all the teachers programmed to deliver their programmes in exactly the same way at the same time. I hope that is not what we are aiming for. In the case of poor performance there has to be some form of exit strategy to help those who are under-performing or who are not suited to teaching. I have come across a number of those in my life where after a period of difficulty they have come to the conclusion that they should never have entered the profession in the first place. It is a very tough profession in which one is constantly on show, constantly under the scrutiny of the students and as the students get older they do not suffer fools gladly. We need to look at some form of exit strategy that would allow somebody who may find it is not suitable for him or her, to exit the profession.

I refer to the inspectorate. I have great respect for all the inspectors I have met and for the chief inspector who is very supportive of teaching. However, I note that in Finland they do not have inspectors and teachers seem to do very well and are held in very high esteem.

My colleague, Senator Ó Clochartaigh referred to bullying in the workplace. There is no doubt that over my period of seven years at national level in my union and for 15 or 20 years before that at local level, we have encountered cases of bullying in the workplace. It is not always a case of bullying because sometimes it is robust management. I have heard teachers complain they are being bullied when they were told they were late for class three times in a week. That is not bullying. However, the problem exists and the power equation that exists in the school sometimes is abused. I have seen principal teachers go outside their remit and introduce things that the Department never thought of in the form of practices that would not necessarily be endorsed by the Department. That is an area we need to examine.

Overall I welcome the Bill. There are some issues regarding the areas of appeal with the lower sanctions. The teacher is normally teaching in a small village or town where once his or her name is damaged it is damaged for all time. We must look at the appeals process. The Minister is aware of the amendments that the various teaching unions want and which I will table on Committee Stage.