Supersizeclasses mustendsays INTOchief
62% of classes in Cork have pupil teacher ratio more than 25:1 22% of classes are more than 30:1 EU stats: Greece, Latvia ratio is 17:1
THE day of ‘supersize classes’ has to come to an end, the north Cork based President of the Irish National Teachers Organisation has told The Corkman.
Castletownroche born Mary Magner disclosed that the pupil teacher ratio in Ireland is far higher than any other country in Europe.
The INTO president cited figures for the situation in classrooms in County Cork to reinforce her union’s prebudget call on the Government to reduce the ratio by one pupil per year every year for the term of the coalition.
“The supersize classes we have here have caused huge difficulties in reopening our schools,” she said.
“The Irish Government were the only government in the EU to have to send out a template to assist with social distancing in the schools - no other country had to because their class sizes are so much lower than they are here in Ireland.”
She cited a number of examples from EU countries where the class pupil teacher ratio was substantially lower than in Ireland. These startling figures showed that the pupil teacher ratio in Greece, ravaged by a decade long recession, was 17:1, Latvia, 17:1, Austria, 18:1 and Luxembourg 15:1.
According to Mary Magner, the cost of reducing the pupil teacher ratio for 2020 would be ‘minimal’ at €4.8m and €13.5m for an entire year.
“The school going population is reducing and we have teachers in the system to reduce pupil teacher ratios,” she said.
“The question we must ask is where is the equality of opportunity for our children - children who are in smaller classes learn better, they have more time to speak, teachers get to spend more time with each of them.”
She referred to the ongoing dispute over the two tier pay system which she said was driving younger teachers to go overseas to places like Dubai where the pay was better in comparison to what graduate teachers would be earning here in Ireland.
The INTO chief paid tribute to principals and teachers who had worked 12 to 14 hour days during August to get their schools ready for the reopening at the end of that month and the beginning of September.
“Classrooms had to be emptied of all unnecessary furniture
and readied for the return of the children.
“The teachers were delighted to be back at the coalface teaching children and the children were delighted to be back at school.
“Three weeks in, however, and I do sense a little anxiety coming back into the situation now.
“Children are aware of what’s happening, they are gleaning the information from the news and this is causing anxiety.
“I heard of one teacher who had to go out to the carpark to coax an anxious pupil to come back to school.”
One of the issues which teachers and principals had to manage was anxious parents.
“I’ve heard of principals sending out photographs of the classrooms to which children were going back.”
The INTO president also spoke of what she termed disappointing criticism directed at teachers during the early days of the lockdown when schools were closed and online teaching took the place of the classroom.
“Back at the end of June, beginning of July, teachers were reporting that they were working twice as hard to teach
online.”
She said that teachers and principals had to undergo a huge amount of upskilling in order to continue teaching the children.
“The vast amount of feedback we got was hugely positive,” she said.
“Parents were expressing their deep appreciation of teachers,” she said.
“What we were hearing back from parents was: ‘I don’t know how you do it’.
The INTO case will be among numerous submissions to be taken into consideration in advance of the Budget in October.