WEB Heaney addresses teacher’s conference.

Over 200 secondary school teachers are attending an ASTI conference in Dublin today which aims to highlight the social importance of education during the downturn.

The Nobel-prize winning poet Seamus Heaney delivered the keynote address at the event during which he emphasised the lasting importance and influence of second level education.

The ASTI also accused the government of villifying teachers through relentless public sector cutbacks.

ASTI General Secretary John White said teachers are being dangerously under-valued by the government.

While poet laureate Seamus Heaney told second-level teachers that their students will have a major impact on the Ireland of the future.

“For years to come, your influences and effect will have consequences in the body politic. The students who go out into society at the end of their school life will be the antibodies in the Ireland of the future…education has a unique role to play in the creation and maintenance of social solidarity and enduring social values” he said.