An insider's guide to education

Quinn’s big dilemma on budget cuts

Only one issue dominating staffroom discussions this week – those possible cuts in the €200 million supervision and substitution scheme for teachers.

Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn is refusing to comment on his plans but it’s clear the department is casting around for savings. While no final decision has been taken, the department’s focus is fixed on allowances and extra payments made to teachers over and above their salaries. The department’s line? Something has to give. And cutting extra payments is the best way to protect frontline services. With pay and pensions absorbing over 70 per cent of the €9 billion education budget, Quinn’s room for manoeuvre is limited. The expected increase in class size will deliver savings of about €80 million. But the Minister knows he needs to make other big ticket savings if he is to “deliver’’ (as he put it) for Brendan Howlin. This is why teachers’ pay is in the firing line. Bord Snip found teachers in Ireland receive about 35 per cent more than their British counterparts. It also highlighted generous supervision and substitution payments and other allowances.

Inside the department, all of this is being used as ammunition by the hawks urging Quinn to make substantial savings. But will he risk confrontation with those awkward teacher unions – at a time when he needs their support to deliver exam and other reforms? And then there is the Croke Park deal. The teacher unions maintain cuts to any payments or allowances are off-limits because of the agreement.

For Quinn, the budget negotiations are presenting very difficult choices. Does he take on the teacher unions or does he risk the wrath of parents by cutting frontline educational services? It’s a real dilemma.

Boys in green at school

Great response to last week’s article on the schools attended by Cabinet members. But where did key members of Ireland’s heroic soccer team go to school?

Kevin Doyle attended Good Counsel, New Ross, Wexford where he was also an outstanding Gaelic footballer. John O’Shea attended De La Salle Waterford; Stephen Hunt attended Mount Sion, Waterford while Shay Given went to St Columba’s in Stanorlar, Donegal.

Apparently, John O’Shea is the only current squad member who completed the Leaving, while Stephen Hunt was the only one to represent Ireland at school.

Talk of education in the Dáil

Which deputy is making the most interesting contribution on education in the Dáil these days?

Step forward Stephen Donnelly who made another fine contribution last week – this time to the debate on the slump in university rankings.

Donnelly chided junior education minister, Ciarán Cannon for his lack of ideas and vision. “I did not hear the Minister of State say that we are in big trouble, we have no money and student numbers are rising. Nor did I hear him outline the great initiatives the Government intends to undertake and that have been done in Oxford, Cambridge or some of the Ivy League colleges in the United States. If I was the chief executive of one of the large multinational companies here I would not take any solace from what I have heard.’’

Brady bites back

"Instead of a truly global perspective, we are being offered the Skibbereen Eagle.''

UCD president Hugh Brady's withering assessment of the Hunt Report on higher education in last week's Sunday Business Post.