An insider's guide to education
- That ASTI ban on out-of-hours parent/teacher meetings has managed to alienate all sides.
So far, it has unleashed an angry response from both Batt O’Keeffe and from Fine Gael’s sensible education spokesman, Brian Hayes.
The union has also taken a pounding in the media and it has burnt bridges with parents, potentially its most important allies in the battles to come.
Rose Tully of the National Parent’s Council pointed out that many working parents – especially those in precarious jobs – will be unable to attend these meetings.
The ASTI has also undercut the very worthy campaign by the teaching unions against the education cuts, leaving teachers vulnerable to the accusation they only care about their own pay and conditions.
The union's general secretary, John White, was forced on to the defensive during a robust exchange with Seán O'Rourke on RTÉ's News at Onelast week. Instead of focusing on those savage education cuts, an uncomfortable White found himself fielding very awkward questions on teachers' relatively short working hours and those long holidays .
And the winner in all of this? Step forward Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe who must be licking his lips at the ASTI’s action.
In the run-up to the Budget, the education focus should be fixed on those cold-hearted cuts aimed at special-needs pupils and the rest. Instead, the ASTI has muddied the waters and scored a classic own goal.
- Do parents bother to read the school inspection reports on the Department of Education website?
These report are billed by the Department as an important resource tool for parents.
It is an overblown claim, of course, given that most of the reports are bland in nature – and they don’t give any information on the key issue of Leaving Cert performance. Still, there is some good material in there and the tone of some reports has become tougher of late.
So why is the Department hiding its light under a bushel?
The reports are virtually impossible to find on the Department of Education website (education.ie). And most parents don’t even know of their existence.
Here’s our solution ... a new user-friendly website – examreports.ie or something like that – and a legal onus on all schools to alert parents when its inspection report is published.
Parents, of course, would much prefer school league tables. But half a loaf is better than no bread.
- The highlight of fight the fees campaign on Facebook is a depiction of Batt O’Keeffe as a bank robber, demanding €70,000 from our poor students.
We have a feeling this image will be more widely circulated during the forthcoming campaign against those student loans.
Incidentally, the Minister hopes to bring the student charges issue to Cabinet within weeks.
- There's a striking and thought-provoking letter from Anne McCloskey, principal of Our Lady of the Wayside NS, Dublin 12 in the latest edition of In Touch, the lively INTO journal.
On the education cuts she writes: “We (primary teachers) cannot succumb to any guilt about our relative security while so many are worried about jobs and homes. We are not responsible for the crisis and the idea that spending on primary education can be cut is laughable.”
“We work in schools where there is no money for caretakers or secretaries, where parents have to fundraise for PE equipment and computers, where fundraising for essential material and services has become accepted as normal.” Fair point well made.
Email us, in confidence, at teacherspet@irishtimes.com
