Some 500 more remedial teachers are needed to improve the reading and writing skills of Irish schoolchildren, a teachers' conference was told at the weekend.
Senator Joe O'Toole, general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, told its conference in Donegal that the Government could tackle low literacy levels by implementing a £20 million-a-year programme aimed especially at young children.
Literacy standards in Ireland are lower than those of other OECD countries, according to Literacy in the Primary School, an INTO discussion document launched at the conference, which says early intervention, helping parents boost their own reading and writing skills and making plenty of books available for children have all been found to be important in improving literacy.
Intervening too late did not work effectively, Senator O'Toole told the conference. "Literacy is the classic example of an educational problem caused by a systemic shortage of resources but for which the teachers and the school are consistently blamed," he said. "We have never had the resources but we have always taken the blame."
He called for a millennium literacy project to include the appointment of up to 35 regional co-ordinators and 500 specialist literacy remedial teachers.
The class teacher would identify children with literacy problems at junior or senior infants level and make a report to the regional co-ordinator who would then assign a specialist teacher, he said. Each pupil would have a number of one-to-one sessions with the literacy specialist every week. Further assessments of the literacy needs of these children would be made at second or third class and at sixth class.
The project would also require the recruitment of 100 extra educational psychologists.
According to the discussion document, the teaching of English reading suffered in Irish schools until 1971 because of measures adopted by the State to downgrade the status of English and boost that of Irish in early school years. These included an instruction given in 1932 that English could no longer be taught in infant classes. In the early 1950s a half-hour of English teaching a day was allowed.
This, combined with a scarcity of books, contributed to a situation where, in 1961, Irish pupils in 5th class were 15 months behind their British counterparts in their English reading standards.
A new curriculum introduced in 1971 helped bring about significant improvements in reading attainment in the 1970s but reading standards do not appear to have improved significantly since the mid-1980s.
The conference also heard that the role of principal was the least attractive leadership position in schools for both men and women. Other leadership roles include deputy and assistant principal, and membership of the board of management. A new INTO report on leadership opportunities, published at the conference, says the unpopularity of the job of principal was hardly surprising given the demanding nature of the role.
The report also says the proportion of women applying for leadership positions is lower than the proportion of teachers who are women. Women reject the traditional view that being appointed as principal is the only measure of success and capability, it says. Many women prefer to exercise leadership roles in such areas as curricular development, pastoral care and staff development.
Padraig O'Morain can be contacted at pomorain@irish-times.ie
Also see: www.into.ie (Irish National Teachers Organisation)