A new addition to the new website commenced in January when a series of monthly interviews kicked off with an interview with Áine Lawlor, Director of the Teaching Council. This was followed up with interviews with Education Spokespersons from some of the main Political Parties prior to the General Election. Seomra Ranga is now delighted to announce that Sheila Nunan, General Secretary of the INTO has accepted an invitation to be the next subject for our interview series.
Sheila Nunan is General Secretary of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO), the first female to date in its 141-year history to lead the INTO. She has been a member of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the INTO since 1995 and was INTO President in 2005/2006. In 2006 Sheila was elected Deputy General Secretary/General Treasurer and served in that role until her election as General Secretary in 2009, securing more than 60% of the ballots cast by the membership. Sheila is a former primary school teacher and principal. She taught in Tallaght and in Bray. She is a graduate of University College, Dublin and St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra.
This is where visitors to the website can become involved. Sheila has agreed to take questions from visitors to the website. You can submit questions for Sheila via the Facebook or Twitter pages, or by posting a comment on this post. These questions must not be of a specific nature but about points in general in relation to education in Ireland and the work of the INTO. Questions should also not be of a personal nature and should be succinct and to the point. I will collate / edit /amalgamate these and submit them to Sheila for answers / comments. I will then put Sheila’s answers together into a post on the Seomra Ranga website.
This is a great opportunity for practising teachers to put questions directly to the General Secretary of the INTO, so I hope that we can get a series of questions from a cross-section of the teaching community. I wish to express my appreciation to Sheila Nunan for agreeing to submit herself to questioning through the Seomra Ranga website. If there are other figures involved in education that you think would be a good interviewee, please let me know.
I would like to ask Sheila her views on the new terms and conditions to the new conditions for ‘new entrants’. I would like to know if the INTO are planning on commenting on it or fighting this dreadful new development. What will the INTO to protect such ‘new entrants’, particularly those who have been working in the private sector or who have not managed to secure a permanent job, but who have years of experience. Will the INTO insist on the increments earned being recognised, as they have been up to this?
I would like to ask Sheila these questions;
Do you not think that you should resign your position for failing the members of the Union? Your misleading approach to the CPA discussions, new shockingly appalling conditions for NQT’s, wage/pension changes and the whole fiasco of the recent permanent job debacle surely must give you an inclination that you are unfit to continue in your position.
What have you as leader of the INTO done to tackle or even explain the position of the INTO regarding these matters?
Can you explain your incredible salary and suggest reasons why you deserve such a payment?
Step down and stop aiding in making the teaching profession and INTO a mockery.