Incoming INTO President Declan Kelleher 20/03/2008
INTO PRESS RELEASE: Irish National Teachers Organisation Incoming President 2008-2009, Declan Kelleher
20 March 2008
Primary School Principal becomes President of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation
Declan Kelleher is a native of Co Clare. He attended Kilnaboy and Corofin National Schools and St Flannan’s College, Ennis. He qualified as a primary teacher in St Patricks’s College of Education, Drumcondra in Dublin and he later studied in UCD (BA) and Trinity College (H Dip Ed). While in St Patrick’s College he was elected President of the Students’ Union and has been actively involved in INTO affairs ever since.
He taught in St. Brigid’s Boys’ National School in Killester in Dublin before moving back to his native Co Clare. He taught in Ennis National School and since 1979 has been principal of Corofin NS in North Clare.
He is a former Branch Cathaoirleach of both the North Dublin and Ennis INTO Branches and was elected to represent District XI (Clare, Tipperary and Waterford) on the INTO Education Committee where he served for 11 years before being elected in 1996 to the INTO Executive to represent the 2,500 teachers in these counties. As an INTO Executive member Declan has been closely involved in the union's campaigns to highlight substandard school buildings, to secure adequate resourcing for primary education, to provide for children with special education needs in mainstream primary schools and to reduce class sizes.
He currently represents the INTO on the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.
As INTO Vice President Declan took on the role of Project Manager of a special union initiative on participation aimed at getting the INTO's thousands of younger members to participate more actively in union structures. This special project will culminate in mid April when the INTO will welcome over 400 young teachers from north and south to the Heritage Hotel in Portlaoise as delegates to the first ever Youth Conference organised by a teaching union on this island. Declan hopes to further build on this initiative with young teachers during the coming year.
His major ambitions are to secure appropriate ancillary support and administrative time for teaching principals, to ensure that the government are forced to deliver on their commitments in the Programme for Government to reduce overcrowded primary classes and to build further on the partnership established between the INTO, parents and primary management to ensure that primary education is properly resourced. He also wants to see primary teachers adequately rewarded for their input to the education service.
Declan supports the development of structures to bring about greater unity among teachers within the trade union movement and in particular strongly supports the recent initiative of the INTO's Northern Committee and Ulster Teachers' Union to work in a shadow federal structure in Northern Ireland. Ends.