Northern Ireland

Teachers to gather to call for greater funding and pay

Gerry Murphy, INTO Northern Secretary
Gerry Murphy, INTO Northern Secretary Gerry Murphy, INTO Northern Secretary

TEACHERS will gather today to highlight issues including budget cuts, increasing classroom sizes and a lack of support for staff going through the menopause.

Hundreds of delegates are expected to attend the northern conference of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) in Newry.

Senior officials will address topics including mental health and workload which, the union says, are affecting staff and pupils in every school.

Key agenda items include calls for an immediate resolution to the teachers' industrial action.

The New Decade, New Approach deal promised that "the executive will ?urgently resolve the current teachers' industrial dispute".

In late January, £19 million was made available to ease pressures on pay for teachers and other non-teaching staff.

However, about £80m is needed for pay alone. That takes no account of workload, which is another reason for action.

The dispute also includes a refusal to cooperate with school inspections.

The conference will reaffirmation its non-cooperation with the Education and Training Inspectorate until the dispute is resolved.

Also in January, the Department of Education received £10m for special needs education, but the conference will hear that is not enough.

It has previously been suggested that the cash-strapped education system needs a £400m injection to ease pressures on school budgets.

INTO Northern Secretary Gerry Murphy said members would be calling on Education Minister Peter Weir to deliver on his commitments.

"We will be discussing issues such as mental health in classrooms and how we support our members, we'll be highlighting the ongoing lack of resources for special educational needs and the undue stress this is causing staff in schools and support services," Mr Murphy said.

"We'll be highlighting issues surrounding a lack of support in classrooms for female teachers who are going through the menopause, budget cuts, the continued problems stemming from the ever increasing classroom sizes and the detrimental impact this has on pupils and staff.

"The INTO continues to support its members by taking action on many issues which continue to affect our teachers who are delivering education to our children under increasingly difficult circumstances."

Meanwhile, the INTO has welcomed an apology from the head of the Education Authority for "unacceptable" failings in the way the body supports pupils with special needs.

An internal EA audit found some children faced delays of two years before receiving a statement.

INTO northern committee vice chairperson Caroline McCarthy, who is a teacher at a special school, said the findings were the "tip of the iceberg".

She said statutory assessment and statementing was only part of "an educational crisis for children and teachers".

"You cannot make special educational needs cheap. It comes with a cost and the funding has not been made available. Enough is enough now," she said.

"We greatly hope that Sara Long's apology, and the public recognition of these systematic failures, will be the beginning of a series of actions which will ultimately improve the lives of children, parents and teachers."