The Department of Education and Science has been accused of abdicating its legal responsibility when a school has a problem. Ms Susie Hall, from the union's Dublin North East branch and a member of the ASTI's central executive council, said in Tralee yesterday that the Department "washes its hands like Pontius Pilot" when there is a problem in a school.
She told more than 500 delegates on the second day of the ASTI Conference that she was concerned about the Department's abdication of its legal responsibility when a problem occurs in a school. "It washes its hands of all legal responsibility when trouble looms and stands back," she said.
"I have served on three boards of management in community schools," she continued. In her experience, the Department's line was, "No, you're the employer. We could not get involved."
"Where there are problems in schools, we've appealed to the Department and begged them on our knees to take responsibility," she said. It refused to get involved, she said. The same thing happened when it came to health and safety issues. "It's a fine cop-out for the Department."
She described the members of school boards of management as "generous well-meaning amateurs" who should not be held responsible or liable in cases taken against a school.
On health and safety issues, she said the circular from the Department stated that the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 1989, required employers to ensure the safety and health of their employees.
Here again, she said, the employer is taken to mean the board of management and the Department "stands back" and does nothing.
Mr Sean Higgins, from the Drogheda branch, another member of the union's central executive council and a former president of the union, called on delegates to address seriously the issue of providing proper warm food for students who had to travel a distance to school each day.
He called for "proper canteen facilities for our students and we need this in every school across the land". The issue, he said, "goes part and parcel with school transport".
Mr Higgins was speaking on a composite motion that schools be equipped with essential and necessary ancillary staff to cover a comprehensive range of services. The motion, which was "carried overwhelmingly", called for the ASTI to renew its efforts to seek staff provision to cover a range of services, including supervision of students, library assistance, secretarial services, caretaking and cleaning services, laboratory assistance, para-medical services, canteen services and services in relation to information technology.
Delegates were told that 97 per cent of schools had no technology technicians; 92 per cent had no home economic assistants; 90 per cent had no lab technicians; 85 per cent had no library/audio visual support staff; 62 per cent of schools had part-time caretakers and 67 per cent had no sport coaches.
The atmosphere was charged as delegates called for a reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio. They voted unanimously for a campaign of action, up to and including industrial action, on the issue. Mr George O'Leary, of the Dublin North branch, who proposed the composite motion calling for a reduced pupil-teacher ratio, said Ireland had the lowest expenditure of GDP per pupil in the European Union and Irish schools had the highest pupil-teacher ratio in the European Union in second-level schools.
Delegates voted to campaign to reduce the ratio from 19:1 down to 15:1.
One delegate, Ms Margaret Le Lu, a member of the union's standing committee, who seconded the motion, said, "With the introduction of a lot of the new programmes and methodologies, it is essential that a lot of classes be halved."
She said that in some of our schools there were a considerable number of refugees from other countries. "I myself taught five different nationalities last year." This and the fact that many pupils needed more attention than others underlined the fact that "we do need a huge improvement in pupil-teacher ratio."