A "fighting job" was the description of teaching given by an ASTI member on the picket line outside the State's biggest second-level school, in Carndonagh, Co Donegal, yesterday.
The community school, which has more than 1,500 pupils and 95 full-time teachers, was closed as teachers picketed both gates, in biting rain. More than half of the staff are ASTI members, and their colleagues in the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) agreed not to cross the pickets. Passing motorists waved and honked horns in support.
"It is a fighting job now. You are fighting with the class. There is a lack of respect and a disinterest," said Mr Phil Coyne, a teacher of English who has been in the profession since 1967.
He said he regretted that it had come to a strike but teachers were "losing ground" compared to other professions. "The number of teachers coming into the system are falling. It is impossible to get substitute teachers and when somebody is sick it means you have to take extra pupils into your class," Mr Coyne said.
All the teachers on the picket praised the school and said it was "a great place to work" but that there wasn't enough recognition that teaching today's teenagers was a difficult and underpaid job.
Mr John Farren, who has been teaching for 13 years, agreed that pupils now were generally more confrontational. "They are up for it all the time," he said.
As a father of four, he said he needed to work during the holidays.
"For years I went to the States and for the last couple of years I took work on building sites. It's hard enough around here, but I don't know how teachers can survive in Dublin at all," he said.
Mr Ger Harkin, who has been teaching for three years, said people who went to university with him were earning an average of £5,000 a year more. He was teaching because he liked the job and found it rewarding, but the pay simply was not good enough.
Those on the picket line were angered by the suggestion that short hours and long holidays make teaching an easy job. "It is anything but an easy job. It is not just the hours you teach - there are all the extra hours, doing corrections and work that is never seen," said Ms Majella Doherty. She said she usually spent 1 1/2 hours each evening doing extra work, and that could increase at busy times of the year.
Mr John Quigley, who has been teaching for four years, said that of his group of 60 who studied science at Bolton Street college, he knew of only two who were teaching. The rates of pay were simply not good enough to attract them into the profession. One of the few advantages of teaching for graduates from Co Donegal was that it enabled them to get a job near home.