Should school secretaries have more power in the education system?

Unlike teachers, school secretaries have precious little power in a system in which power talks and those without it must do without, writes Michael Clifford

Should school secretaries have more power in the education system?

Unlike teachers, school secretaries have precious little power in a system in which power talks and those without it must do without, writes Michael Clifford.

Moves were announced this week to address the kind of inequality that raised its head in the recent recession. Public servants who were employed on lesser terms and conditions since 2011 are to be accelerated towards pay parity.

Around 35,000 staff across the public sector will benefit from the proposals. This will mean an increase in salary of up to €3,000 for the teachers, nurses and others hired since 2011.

Pay inequality since 2011 has, in recent years, become a hot political topic. Various unions have made strong running on it.

The same unions turned the other way when the inequality was introduced, but everybody was looking out for their nearest and dearest when skin and hair were flying in those days.

Industrial unrest over the festering issue was a real possibility. So the Minister for Finance Pascal Donohoe acted fast lest anything interfere with his party’s chances of re-election. The whole affair has shown the pressure that can be brought to bear over a perceived injustice when groups are organised and committed.

Among the groups involved here are teachers. Their unions don’t believe the new measures go far enough, so Mr Donohoe has not yet saved the day.

There is another group in the service of the public, who work shoulder to shoulder with teachers, for whom this week’s news brings absolutely no comfort in relation to the inequality they suffer.

Unlike teachers, school secretaries are not in a position to bring any leverage to bear on the Government.

Unlike teachers, secretaries have precious little power in a system in which power talks and those without it must do without.

School secretaries hold a unique position in the education system. Anybody who has been a parent knows the value they add to the functioning of a school. A good secretary is a committed ally to a principal. She — and it is overwhelmingly she — gets involved in every aspect of the functioning of the school.

She is one part administrator, one part assistant to the principal, and many parts everything else including confidante, counsellor and quite often general dogsbody.

A teacher can and often does go absent for a day or two or three through illness. The school still functions. When a secretary can’t come into work for any extended period of time, the school battles against a descent into chaos

Of course, few secretaries go absent for an extended period irrespective of their health because they are unlikely to receive any sick pay and the security of their position could even come under threat.

That is just one of the indignities that school secretaries are subjected to. For the school secretary serves the public through being a vital cog in the education system, but she is not a public servant.

She does not enjoy the benefits and protection of public servants. She is employed not by the Department of Education, under national pay agreements, but at the grace and favour of individual boards of management.

She is paid from a school’s ancillary grant, that also must cover cleaning and minor repairs and other incidental costs. For instance, it is entirely plausible that if a school’s boiler or heating system explodes and requires major repair, the secretary could find herself laid off for a period of weeks.

She receives no pension. The school secretary who has served for decades gets not a cent of recognition in terms of a pension. None of this is a reflection of school boards. Most secretaries are properly valued, but there are no guarantees.

How could such an appalling vista exist in a country that allegedly values education? In 1978, a scheme was set up to pay secretaries and school caretakers, effectively regularising their employment.

Then five years later, some bright spark came up with the idea of grants for schools in order that they have some control over the management of finances. Crucially, this grant was to include the payment for secretaries.

Only around 300 out of 3,000 secretaries are employed under the scheme that lasted from 1978 to 1983.

The early 1980s were a world away from today. Yet despite the advances in many areas, including the responsibilities of secretaries, the system keeps the employment of schools secretaries on a precarious footing.

Some manage to get a better deal than others. For instance, two schools in one town could be paying their secretaries completely different salaries, ranging from €10,000 to €35,000 per annum. This doesn’t necessarily reflect competence or even the size of a school. It may well be simply all that a particular school can afford.

Kathleen O’Doherty has been a school secretary in Letterkenny, Co Donegal for over 20 years. In 2001, she wrote to the then minister for education pointing out the apparent disregard for her role. She has written to every minister since, and each one has quietly ignored the problem.

“We’re not fighting against the boards (of management),” she says.

We know that their hands are tied. But there is no security whatsoever. In fairness to principals and boards, a secretary’s wages may be the last thing taken into consideration simply because things are so tight

When the hammer came down at the height of the recession, prompting the changed conditions for new entrants to the public service, school secretaries also got it in the eye.

The cutting of grants meant the cutting of their salaries. Although they didn’t benefit from the increases through the years of illusory boom, they were hit when the economy tanked.

To be fair, the department, under pressure, issued a circular last year to schools instructing that school secretary wages be increased to €11.50 an hour. According to the trade union Forsa, some schools were slow to give the increase. In this again, secretaries do not have the usual protections enjoyed by public servants.

Neither do they have the kind of muscle that saw the Government act on pay inequality this week.

“It really should be a job that staff should be better looked after,” Kathleen O’Doherty says.

“We are entitled to be, as we have a pivotal role in the school. I don’t know why it’s not the case because practically everybody in the country has some connection with schools.”

Perhaps it’s simply the case that successive governments have got away with the prevailing system and will continue to do so unless a solidarity that goes beyond lip service is effected in order to right a very obvious wrong.

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