There was a discernible change of mood at the teacher conferences this week. A great deal of rancour has given way to a more constructive approach.
Benchmarking payments to teachers are a factor which may explain this. But Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin also deserves credit for lifting the morale of the profession after a difficult and fractious period.
The focus at the various conferences this year was on day-to-day problems within the sector - overcrowding in classrooms, the decline in school discipline and the problems in disadvantaged schools. A common theme across all three teaching unions was the gross under-funding of the education sector in this State when compared to our EU partners. The Republic has only invested six per of its GNP in education on two occasions in the past 16 years,even though this is the widely regarded minimum benchmark for spending. Pupils and teachers in this State also continue to endure some of the most overcrowded classrooms in the EU. More than 100,000 primary school children are in classes of over 30 pupils.
Ms Hanafin received a very warm reception from delegates. But she gave no real indication of how she intends to address these and other problems. To the dismay of the INTO leadership, she said very little of substance on the issue of class size. She did unveil a €40 million package on disadvantage but it appears that this money will be spread very thinly.
It was difficult to see much in the new package which will make a quantifiable difference to the significant minority of pupils in poorer areas, struggling with literacy and numeracy problems. For all that, it may be that the Minister is waiting until next month to unveil a further range of measures. She is planning to publish a new framework to combat educational disadvantage. The plan - which has been under consideration by her department for two years - is for a more coherent and integrated approach to the issue. Some of the many programmes targeting disadvantage will be streamlined; others will be abolished. The objective is to tackle the problem in a more focused way.
While this is welcome in itself, the key challenge facing the Minister is to secure vastly more resources to help address the twin issues of class size and educational disadvantage. In the coming months, she needs to convince her Cabinet colleagues about the scandal of over-crowded classrooms and about the scale of the education crisis in poorer areas.
She must demand the kind of resources which will make a real difference.