A chara, – Contrary to your editorial (January 7th), teachers are subject to oversight of their work and face sanctions for non-performance of their duties or for professional misconduct. There is an established legislative basis for this in section 24 of the Education Act, which includes sanctions up to and including dismissal. In 2009 the publication of these revised procedures was reported in your newspaper.
Your editorial says the Department of Education’s chief inspector admitted that under current procedures only two cases had been taken to deal with underperforming teachers. The chief inspector’s most recent report states that disciplinary procedures provide for a staged process whereby boards dissatisfied with a teacher’s work or behaviour can require him or her to bring about improvement. Only if a board remains dissatisfied with the teacher’s work is a review of the teacher’s work by the inspectorate sought, as has happened on two occasions. The procedures are meant to resolve most cases at school level and it is clear this is what happens.
The Teaching Council will soon get from the Minister for Education full legal powers to conduct inquiries into the fitness to teach of any registered teacher and the power to remove teachers from the register and hence from eligibility for employment as a teacher in Ireland. What Ruairí Quinn did last week was simply agree to provide additional but proportionate sanctions to the Teaching Council, something the council itself had requested of him two years ago.
The question your editorial should have addressed is why it took two years to progress such a relatively straightforward request. – Is mise,
SHEILA NUNAN,
General Secretary,
Irish National
Teachers’ Organisation,
Parnell Square, Dublin 1.