What’s your point? "And look how I turned out!" Just because it was done in the past doesn’t mean we should continue it:( As usual with successive govts, a disgraceful & moronic decision.

I remember counting 56 in my class in the 70s ..primary. In secondary we were graded like potatoes into classes in the 30s from A to F. I think by today’s standards the F class would have had it’s fair share of ADHDs and dyslexics. By the time I did my leaving there was just A to D. They may have well tattooed C on my forehead. I’m now in my 40s I have about 10 in my class now in university..long time to wait hehe

Job losses is just one issue. The major issue is over-crowded classrooms.

As a teacher and as a professional, I make no apology for my pay. I trained, I qualified, I was lucky enough to get a job, and I work for every penny I earn. It’s time people stopped under-valuing teaching as a profession.

The failure of society at large to recognise that paying for societies necessities is an important investment is awful, complaints about the quality of schools and education in general ignore that you get what you pay for: fail to invest in education and your society begins to fail. As for the old red herring of three months off, Irish teachers spend more time in front of the their (overcrowded) classes than any other OECD nation while being paid significantly less. (http://is.gd/GlCHeN).

I don’t under-value teaching as a profession. I have huge respect for it. I just did the leaving and I owe much of my work to my teachers, many of whom have put in great work for us over the past two years.

However with an €18bn budget deficit we need to make cutbacks or we go bankrupt and then you’ll see teacher salaries cut by up to a half overnight. Nobody wants to see that.

Unfortunately it’s a choice between increasing class sizes or cutting teacher’s salaries. I don’t want to do either but I know that if I had to make a choice that I would sooner protect the children than protect teacher’s salaries. I hope that’s not an insult to teachers but when you account for job security, pensions and the holidays the choice becomes even easier in my mind. I think we should at least freeze increments over the short term. They’re unaffordable at this point in time.

Your solution presupposes the cuts are inevitable and ignores the failure of successive governments and the DES to
‘pay it forward’, in other words to invest in educational infrastructure and quality and well rewarded teaching as a guaranteed way of securing our future. We are in an economic mire but turning the road forward into a culdesac is no solution. And btw reducing the issue to a teachers wage cut vs a cut to educational investment is naive, they’re the same thing, invest in your workforce and you see the benefit tenfold.

David, worse than Fas, really? The teaching gig is open and honest – nobody is scamming anyone else. However I agree that teachers (such as myself) should have to supervise and correct state exams and that all staff training should take place over the summer break. However can’t see it ever happening because of the unions.

The pupil teacher ratio is not reflected in the size of each class group. What the DES consistently fail to explain is that the PTR functions as a method of calculating the number of teachers in a school. A school with 450 students and a PTR of 19:1 can provide approx 520 hours of teaching a week, the same with a PTR of 20:1 can only provide 495. That means something in that school has to go, usually a ‘marginal’ subject like sciences or higher maths, you know the ones commentators keep telling us are essential for securing our future.

Aideen, how exactly do you figure a further reduction in teacher salaries will solve the overcrowding issues in classrooms? You’re missing the point completely; with an increase in the ratio as proposed, not only will there be more and more unemployed teachers, but more importantly, students with dyslexia, ADHD, dyspraxia etc etc, will suffer most. By and large, good students will still manage(but should we be content with just ‘managing’?) while those who need most attention will suffer. This is a devastating blow to our young people. We need to increase funding and improve our education system, not continue to dismantle it.

Aideen, the economic reality is that previous generations at least acknowledge the importance of social capital, while they didn’t have the money to invest in it. More recently when we had the money we decided that investing in the future wasn’t important and that low taxation was preferable to schools with indoor toilets and the odd computer. Short sighted comments about public sector workers prove the point. And by the way, I’ve taken a pay cut of 19%, I’d teach for free if only the private sector shop owner would give me groceries for free.

I work in the public sector so I’m not just having a go. Its very simple, cuts have to be made, public sector workers have refused that this be to their pay, so what do they expect of course class sizes are going to increase as the department has to reduce their wage bill by other means, i.e not hiring new teachers. As a result another generation will suffer when instead investment should be put into this vital area but the department have their hands tied

Let’s go through that in reverse. The DES has it’s hands tied: no, pay and investment were introduced without consultation four separate times in the last 3 years, inefficiencies in administration are no reason to hurt frontline services.
Reducing the wage bill: any new entrant to teaching this August (that’s when we go back) will begin on 14% less than someone who started last summer, and they’ll probably pay more into their pension than they’ll ever get out of it. That’s just new entrants, they’ll still sign up, but that’s because they want a shot at being like this http://t.co/BfUkIYX
Public Sector refuses wage cuts: yes, that always works, we say no and they say okay.
Cop on.

People who send their children to private schools pay the same taxes as everyone else, why shouldnt they get their teachers salaries paid for in the same way public school childrens teachers salaries are paid.

@aideen. Great. It’s solved then. All newly qualified teachers can start lining up at the dole office because the departments hands are tied. Meanwhile employed teachers can take a further pay cut. Your pessimism and lack of determination to try and do something about this problem is something we could all do without. I’d gladly start on a lower salary-you on the other hand are employed. Easy to cascade the rest of us from the upper echelons.

And I reiterate my previous question to you…

@Fintan. Great link. Interesting viewpoint that resonates to us all at some point and a gentle reminder that teachers can make a real difference. May I suggest Frank McCourt’s ‘Teacher Man’ also… Funny if not inspiring

The number in each room has nothing to do with the PTR, read comment I made elsewhere

I want to see increased taxes on the wealthy too, but you’d be lucky to get more than a billion out of the upper classes and then you’re right down into the middles classes where most of us lie. We need 18 billion.

I share your frustration that we’re not the ones who have caused this crisis (except those who voted Fianna Fáil in the past) but sadly we have to work within the economic realities of the present :(

It’s what we do with the money we invest, not how much we invest. Secret is to cut numbers of trainee teachers and make it harder to gain entrace into teaching courses and assess potential candidates more vigorously. There is a lot that can be done to use the funds more wisely, and Ruairí Quinn is the man for this job. So far he is one of the few good things about this new Government.

Oh, Ireland. The above is the old “well that’s the way it was in my day, and shure aren’t we all grand, so and we are” chestnut, butchered and reproduced to be balanced on the obviously chipped shoulder of people like you, Sinead.

I am a newly-qualified teacher. I have no entitlement to a job, nor do I expect one. I have spent over €500 on photocopying, printing and postage on applications for jobs this summer and though this is a big stretch for me financially, I have accepted this to be a necessary evil and I’m getting on with it. I am not restricting myself geographically either – I’m applying for work all over the country where I will be miles from family and friends. Hopefully something will come. I work damn hard for every child that I have ever had the (wonderful) opportunity of working with, and I’d like to think that every parent I have encountered on my career thus far sees the passion, energy and commitment I give to my job, and that I give to their child. I never come to school later than 8am and I never leave before 4pm. I also spend hours of time – and hundreds of euro – off my own back planning interesting, stimulating lessons and making attractive and appealing resources to engage the child fully in lessons. I do this with great joy and without having to be asked.

I would take ANY class right now, regardless of size, but we have to accept that having a smaller number in a room has a huge effect on the one-to-one time that every child wants (and deserves!). Whole-class teaching is just one aspect of teaching and learning, and I’m sure you’ll understand that the new curriculum (which I presume you’ve read in full, given your self-assured, adamant response above) calls for child-centred, hands on learning which is MUCH more difficult to address in room packed to the rafters with children.

I’m sorry if that is too demanding a response for you, but I’m a sympathy free-zone as you so eloquently put it.

I honesty don’t know how any teacher can teach with 30 children in the class. It must be bordering on crowd control a lot of the time! Very short sighted decision!