TEACHER UNIONS at second level are to withdraw from a range of activities including parent- teacher meetings from the end of this month as part of their campaign against the pension levy.
From Tuesday March 31st the unions have agreed to withdraw from parent-teacher meetings outside of school time, staff meetings outside of school time and school development planning meetings.
Public service unions including the three teacher unions – the ASTI, the TUI and the INTO – are taking strike action on March 30th to demonstrate what they say is their anger at the Government’s inequitable handling of the current economic crisis, the pensions levy and the education cutbacks.
Meanwhile, President Mary McAleese last night highlighted the importance of education at a time when “peace and prosperity are under attack”.
She was speaking during a scripted address to the ASTI’s centenary dinner.
We should remind ourselves that these are only the earliest days of Ireland’s new narrative which was thanks to the confidence and fresh thinking brought by formal education, she said.
Mrs McAleese recalled “the dam-burst” that followed the introduction of free second-level fees at the end of the 1960s.
Education had transformed society and the individual and had helped to bring about peace and prosperity, she said.
“So many of the endemic problems that had defeated past generations for centuries, peace and prosperity among them, were reduced to achievable proportions,” she said.
Mrs McAleese said local and global economics was the challenge facing this generation.
The economic situation showed “the extent to which our world has been hollowed out by short-term greed and a culture of expecting rapid reward for very little expended effort,” she said.
We would face down current economic difficulties using our education and confidence as well as our unique social solidarity, she said,
Mrs McAleese spoke of the futility of short-termism in education.