A simple formula for education - letter published in Irish Times 18/2/12
Sir, – Like anybody else, Ivan Yates is entitled to his opinion. However, this opinion loses all credibility when built on the crumbling foundations of inaccurate, poorly researched and misleading pseudo-analysis (Education Today, February 14th). He makes reference to lecturers having a teaching commitment of only six hours per week. In institutes of technology, this is far from the reality. Institute lecturers teach 16 to 18 hours per week; the international norm is 10 to 12. Moreover, for each hour of teaching, a multiple of this is spent in preparation, evaluation and reflection. In addition to this core commitment, they have a lengthy list of other academic responsibilities including research, devising and updating syllabuses on an on-going basis, course development and planning and extensive continuous and final assessment.
At a time when we hear much lip service to the concept of the knowledge economy, lecturers in institutes also carry out extensive applied research. They create the new knowledge that is so vital to this country.
Meanwhile, Mr Yates is not comparing like with like in terms of second level teaching hours. The number of core teaching hours in Ireland (735) is higher than both the OECD average of 679 and the 714 hour figure for England. In addition to this, a survey carried out by Behaviour Attitudes two years ago showed that when all aspects of the job are included, Irish second-level teachers work an average of 46 hours per week, which is considerably above the norms elsewhere. Furthermore, neither the second- nor third-level figures outlined above include the new commitments under the current Public Service Agreement.
Any debate on education is a welcome one and the quality of our public education system should be a matter for robust public discourse. However, it should always be grounded in fairness and accuracy. – Yours, etc,
BERNIE RUANE,
President,
Teachers’ Union of Ireland,
Orwell Road,
Rathgar,
Dublin 6.