Tuesday 22 April 2014 16.15 Teachers have rejected a proposal by Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn that higher level mathematics at Leaving Certificate level should be a minimum requirement for students wishing to become primary school teachers.
The minister made the proposal during an address to Irish National Teacher Organisation delegates at their annual congress in Kilkenny today.
Additional comments regarding the "feminisation" primary school teaching and the tendency for girls to drop to Ordinary Level Maths for the Leaving Cert were also met with sustained audible disagreement from delegates.
INTO general secretary Sheila Nunan rejected the idea saying the focus should be on improving teaching methodology in the subject instead.
Ms Nunan also said she hopes a new scale, that would begin improving the salary of some teachers, will be agreed in the next couple of weeks.
She was responding to a comment by Minister Quinn who said he believed progress on equalising pay scales could be made in the near future.
Ms Nunan called the fact that teachers working alongside each other are on three different pay scales an "absolute sore".
Some discussions have been taking place between trade union leaders and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform with a view to correcting the unequal pay situation affecting teachers as well as other public sector workers.
A new scale was introduced in 2011, reducing pay for new graduates by 13%, and another one came in in 2012.
These talks centre on merging the 2011 pay scale over time with what preceded it.
However, this will only effect up to 2,000 teachers and teachers concerns about pay are much wider than that.
Details of a survey released by the INTO indicate that 50% of teachers do not have enough time to do all that is expected of them.
Two-thirds of primary school teachers are dissatisfied with their pay levels and conditions of employment.
INTO delegates will also discuss a motion calling on the union to commence a process of pay claims in conjunction with other ICTU trade unions.
Over the coming days, the second-level teachers' unions will debate motions looking for the consolidation of pay scales.
Meanwhile, Teachers' Union of Ireland General Secretary John McGowan has described the Haddington Road Agreement as "the lesser of two evils".
Delivering the address at the TUI Annual Congress in Kilkenny, he said the HRA is "highly unpalatable and was accepted by the TUI members only with justifiable resentment".
He said "the unions' trust in the Government will be severely beyond recall unless it restores the pay cuts according to the schedule set out in the agreement".
Over 450 delegates are attending the three-day conference in Kilkenny.
Quinn focuses on school patronage in INTO address
School patronage was the focus of Minister Quinn's address to the annual conference this morning.
Mr Quinn told delegates he was disappointed that the Catholic Church had yet to furnish examples of genuinely inclusive Catholic primary schools, two years after being asked.
He said such exemplars were important to help guide the approach of all schools and he said it was "regrettable" that none had been provided.
Mr Quinn said he had no wish to engage in culture wars or to create division in Irish society.
He also had no desire to see an end to denominational education in Ireland, he added.
However, he said the education system had to be continually reformed so that it reflected and supported all the people.
He said Ireland was party to a wide-range of international conventions requiring it to respect the rights of children and parents in relation to education and freedom of religion.
The minister said he believed schools could have more flexible timetabling for religious education, to enable children to opt out of the subject more easily.
Meanwhile, the executive chairman of the Catholic Schools Partnership has said the suggestion that there is a very serious problem with inclusivity for children of all faiths in Catholic-run schools is not true.
Fr Michael Drumm said people need to be "very careful" about the discourse used in the discussion as a huge number of schools are "doing this very well".
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Fr Drumm said the issue needed to be negotiated in local communities, where there is a mix of parents who want religious education taught, and those parents who do not.
He said the Catholic Church was not "micro-managing" schools or dictating timetables and wanted to ensure there was greater inclusivity for all children in schools.
To this extent, he said, the Church is "fully engaged" in the process.
He said he was "surprised" by Minister Quinn's comments to the INTO earlier as the Catholic Church is still waiting for a report back from the Department of Education as part of a consultation process.
There was some applause from INTO delegates as the minister took to his feet.
But comments on the tendency for girls to drop to Ordinary Level Maths for the Leaving Cert were met with sustained audible disagreement from delegates.
Minister Quinn told delegates that he believes the system for allocating supports for children with special educational needs is unfair and needs to be changed.
Schools in some wealthier communities were receiving more support than disadvantaged schools, he said.
This was because poorer parents sometimes could not afford to pay for the assessments that would enable them to draw down resources.
In a veiled criticism of some schools, Mr Quinn said the National Council for Special Education was encountering what he called "hard barriers" when they attempted to open special classes for children with special learning needs in certain areas.
The minister did not specify the areas he was talking about.
But he appealed to INTO delegates to remain conscious of the role individual schools could play in welcoming all children into the education system.
There was no concerted protest during the minister's address.
He received applause both at the start and at the end, but there were groans and mutterings of disagreement several times during his speech.
Blog: Media cycles and the teacher conference merry-go-round
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