An insider's guide to education

• And still we wait. Six months after it was promised, there is still no sign of The Dempsey Masterplan for third-level fees.

The Minister will not have been heartened by reports of Cabinet dissent on the issue. The mere possibility of bringing back fees has already triggered some back-bench unease and some PD hysteria.

Bertie has already opened the way for a student-loan scheme by pointing to the 57 per cent pay bonus that graduates receive. But the return of fees? That could be a bridge too far.

A key player in all this will be Charlie McCreevy. He saw the abolition of fees as regressive. But is he willing to upset the middle-classes and Mary Harney by backing their return?

• Barbara Johnston now stands tall as virtually the only representative of post-primary parents with any national profile. As expected, her weekend conference of the Catholic parents' group was an outstanding success.

Johnston is a thought-provoking voice in education - one of the few people not afraid to tell it like it is.

By contrast, the National Parents' Council (Post Primary) - what a clumsy title - appears to be in some disarray. The organisation is riven by more internal disputes and squabbles. Parents deserve better than this.

• Speaking of UCD. . . An astonishing 18,000 students from almost 300 schools attended its recent open days. About 80 per cent were fifth- year students. So much for the projected downturn in student figures in the next decade.

• With all this talk about the crisis in science, the Department of Education is anxious to press on with the new Junior Cert curriculum.

The widely admired curriculum - developed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment - is due to be rolled out in the next school year. It is confidently expected that the new courses - which place an emphasis on practical and topical work - will help to arrest the fall-off in students taking science.

Only one problem: science teachers and their unions believe the new curriculum cannot be implemented. The scandalous state of many school labs and the pressure on resources make it unrealistic, they say.

Teachers want to see an investment in more resources before September. But is this realistic at a time of cutbacks?

• The Government has quite rightly been criticised for its attempt to neutralise the Freedom of Information Act (FOI). But what about the universities?

The FOI officers in the various colleges do their best to respond to individual requests in a generous way. Not so some of their senior colleagues.

Some colleges are ignoring the spirit of the legislation and trying to conceal even routine information. There cannot be anything to hide. Can there?

Got any education gossip?

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