Minister stands over publication of school inspections
School inspection reports will be made public from the summer despite a teachers’ union vowing to withhold its cooperation, the Minister for Education warned tonight.
Mary Hanafin said she was disappointed by the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) decision not to co-operate with the publication of the reports.
“At the moment the INTO has to bring this back to their council for them to decide what they are going to do in May,” she said.
“Those schools who have been completed, who have had their evaluations done after the date, which I announced which was February 6, that process is ongoing at the moment and they are due to be published.”
After the announcement of the school inspection reports last year, the minister said she had engaged in a full consultation with all of the unions, management, parents and students.
“Everything that the schools actually looked for has been included in this. That is why I believe they should see it as a very positive move for parents who need some information and for the teachers and the schools themselves,” she said.
“There is no way that these can give rise to league tables, which was one of the concerns that they raised. There will be no grading of teachers, no naming of teachers. There will be no grades given to the schools.”
Ms Hanafin said under the Sustaining Progress partnership agreement the Department of Education would be obliged to notify the monitoring body if problems arose.
“If this goes ahead and if the INTO decide not to conform and not to cooperate with the inspectors, that of course would be a breach and the pay rise is due in June,” she told RTÉ Radio.
“I genuinely believe this would be seen as industrial action and it would be seen as a breach of the partnership, which would be very serious indeed in the whole industrial relations process.”
Ms Hanafin said the reports were focusing on the quality of learning and teaching in schools.
“It would also celebrate all the fabulous work which is going on in our schools, not just in academic learning but also in supporting students and in the whole extracurricular activities,” she said.
The minister highlighted that since the year 2000 there have been 4,000 school inspections and there have only been six appeals by schools.
