Schools 'descend into chaos' as hiring ban persists [Independent.ie]
- Published: 28 December 2010
The Government has failed to live up to its promise to allow schools to fill certain vacant posts, leaving some schools to "descend into chaos".
The Department of Education has frozen the process in post-primary because a flood of retirements pushed up the number of vacancies they expected to have to fill.
More than 1,300 middle-management posts, crucial to the smooth running of schools, were lost as a result of the public sector jobs' embargo.
The Government gave a commitment in July to fill some of them amid warnings of the damaging effects on pupils of not filling vacant assistant principal positions.
The relief felt when the partial lifting of the moratorium was announced has now turned to disappointment and anger.
But to date, none of the 120 primary schools that applied to fill a vacancy in September has heard anything back from the department.
While the embargo affects all middle-ranking posts in schools, the alleviation only applies to vacancies at the level of assistant principal, because of the crucial role they play.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
