SPORTING TEACHERS CUTBACKS AND SCHOOLS' SPORT: THIS PAPER'S third sports supplement of the week is eloquent testimony to the place of sport in the Irish psyche.

Whether it the dream of Croke Park, Lansdowne Road, the English Premier League, the Olympic Games or of arenas like Lord's or Madison Square Gardens, there is something in all of us, men and women, participants and spectators, that recognises sport is a means by which we can integrate the physical, intellectual, emotional, and indeed even spiritual parts of ourselves into one human being.

While this interest in sport starts at an early age, it is our secondary education system that provides so many of the opportunities for this growth and development.

I am Principal of Marian College, a medium-sized boys' school of 430 pupils in Dublin, where we field teams in rugby, Gaelic football, basketball, soccer, hurling, waterpolo, athletics and cricket, as well as providing a large intra-mural programme in table-tennis.

Last week at the college, in addition to the PE programme in class time, there were nine hours of rugby training, three hours of soccer training, four hours for Gaelic football, five hours for hurling, eight hours of basketball coaching and three hours training for waterpolo - not to mention the six hours of rehearsals for the school musical.

This was all provided by teachers outside of their normal teaching hours and at no cost to the state.

If the Department of Education and Science paid for these 50 man and women hours at current rates, it would have cost € 3,000 for the past week alone. Over a full year it would cost € 90,000 for Marian College and for the 400 secondary schools in the Republic it would cost € 36 million per annum.

All this the Department gets for free because schools believe in the value of the holistic education of which sport and other extra-curricular activities are a vital part, and because teachers are prepared to bear witness to that value by giving hours of their time to the development of the young people in their care.

Rightly, in 2003, the Government entered an agreement with the JMB (the management body for secondary schools) and the teacher unions, whereby the Department would pay for substitute cover for teachers who were missing from school because of official school business such as games, field trips, theatre visits etc.

In a complex agreement, which involved some supervision and substitution by the existing staff of the school, the Department also agreed to provide substitute cover for uncertified illness of teachers so that the schools could continue to function when teachers were missing. But what has now happened? Amongst the many cutbacks being inflicted on the education system, the Department is walking away from this agreement by withdrawing the capacity of the schools to employ a substitute when the teachers are out on uncertified illness or when they are away with school teams.

Thus at the stroke of a pen, the Minister and his officials are putting all these activities at risk because from next January onwards, schools will be unable to allow all this valuable co-curricular and extra-curricular work to continue since the Department will no longer allow schools to employ substitute cover for the teachers that are out.

So what of the Leinster Schools' Cup in rugby, the Harty Cup in Munster hurling, the All-Ireland Schools finals in the packed National Basketball Arena, the geography field trips, the visits to the Abbey theatre, the Young Scientist exhibition? All potential victims of a cutback which will damage the fabric of our schools on a daily basis from January 9th.

It is not too late. Surely reason will prevail. Surely someone at a high level can stop the baby being thrown out with the bathwater.

Every house in Ireland has adults and children who are benefiting enormously from sport. Every Government report about health or crime talks about the value of sport in giving young people an outlet for their energy and enthusiasm.

Every school principal knows there are students who hear "the call of the street" when they get to their mid-teens and knows that sport can provide the critical anchor that stops these young people drifting away.

It is my strong belief, based on my own experience through a sporting career that began in primary school and continues now into my late-fifties, based on what I have seen with my own three sons, and my own three nieces, all of whom have excelled at basketball, based on my experience as a teacher and coach, based on my experience as a head-master, that the students who get involved in sport at school, are healthier, happier and seem able to cope better with the ups and downs of life, and are certainly able to "stay the course" much longer than those who drop out of sport - and often out of school - at an earlier age.

The wonderful synthesis of sport in our schools and sport in our voluntary organisations like the GAA, the IRFU, the FAI, and Hockey Union, Basketball Ireland and all of the other sporting associations, cannot be taken for granted. This wonderful work needs nurturing. It does not need to be attacked.

Please Minister O'Keeffe, rethink this proposal, and sit down with the education partners. There has got to be a better way!

Paul Meany won 10 caps for Ireland in basketball