SCHOOLS NEED NEW administrative officers to be able to deal with the “massive workload” associated with the free schoolbooks scheme, the National Association for Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) has said.

A recent survey of school leaders by the association found three-quarters are unhappy to continue locally managing the scheme, which provides funding to cover students’ books and key classroom resources.

NAPD president Brian Doran told The Journal while the scheme is “important” and “worthwhile”, it is creating “an awful lot of administration”.

“We already do an awful lot of administration that distracts us away from the main focus of our work, which is leading teaching, learning, supporting teachers, supporting students in the school,” he said. 

Doran cited procurement, stock control, distribution and storage as some of the administrative challenges. 

Doran said they are asking for an administrative officer for each school to address this, citing the amount of administrative tasks principals already do and the “opportunity cost” of principals and deputy principals’ time being taken up.

“I call them marginal pains, and all these little pains are adding up, and what they’re doing is causing a significant workload for us.”

The NAPD’s national conference is taking place this week and their survey found three-quarters of school leaders are unhappy to continue managing the scheme locally. 

Over 75% of respondents believe that schools don’t receive enough administrative support to implement the scheme. 

Over 60% said that it shouldn’t be left to individual schools to administer and nine in 10 believe the administration of the schoolbooks scheme is creating a major burden,

Doran said the NAPD are still waiting for details of supports to come out after Budget 2027 was announced on Tuesday.

He said the budget “wasn’t very clear on this particular aspect” yet.

Preparing to strike

Asked about the upcoming school strike over the delay in a public sector pay deal, Doran said it is “beyond a school issue”. 

“The strike and the work-to-rule are matters for the unions and the government to have negotiations around this public sector pay deal, I suppose it’s important to say that it’s public-sector-wide, so it’s not unique to education.”

They plan to keep the “school day and school week as normal as [they] can for students” as the strike is set to go ahead next week. 

“When it’s all said and done, they still have to get on with their learning and get on with their exams.”