Despite the economic success of recent years, many primary school children still have to learn in filthy, rat-infested and unsanitary school buildings, the INTO has claimed.
The general secretary designate, Mr John Carr, said in a modern economy no child, irrespective of age, should have to cope with sub-standard accommodation.
Speaking at the union's consultative education conference in Galway, he said: "We must name, blame and shame the perpetrators of filthy, rat-infested, unsanitary, dilapidated and badly furnished school buildings. The scourge of poor and inadequate school accommodation must be confined to the past."
The union has been campaigning on the issue of poor schools buildings for some time and earlier this year drew up a list of over 40 seriously sub-standard buildings. Mr Carr said schools were deficient in many other ways, including a lack of modern computers.
"Technological education demands technological equipment," he said.
It was not too much to expect that all teachers be supplied with a laptop and appropriate software, he said.
"Whereas teachers supplied their own chalk sticks in the past, not to mention practically all other educational material, it is surely not too much to ask that the State should now intervene and provide the necessary equipment and resources to provide modern teaching and learning opportunities," he said.