5th July 2018
Primary school teachers from across the country gathered in Dublin recently to meet with more than 115 TDs and Senators from across the political divide. Members stressed the need to value primary education in the forthcoming budget with a series of concrete recommendations to ensure children continue to receive a robust, high quality educational experience.
Here is a video summarising the key messages arising at the event:
INTO’s key calls for action include:
1. Resolving pay issues whereby new entrants are paid unequally and principals have been denied an overdue award.
2. Supporting school leadership by creating critical support posts and providing a minimum of one release day per week for teaching principals.
3. Reducing Irish class sizes to the EU average of 20.
4. Increasing school funding to enable school leaders to focus on teaching, not fundraising.
5. Establishing teacher supply panels to ensure certainty of recruitment and quality.
New entrant pay inequality remains a key flank of our political engagement this summer. Talks between the public service unions and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform will continue over the coming weeks. The CEC remains focussed on achieving an outcome that will be put to a ballot of members, in accordance with the Congress 2018 resolution.