An insider's guide to education

•At last something is being done to lessen the ridiculous workload of senior figures at the Department of Education. Two new Assistant Secretaries will be appointed shortly; the only question now is the job description for each post.

The Minister, Mary Hanafin, and her secretary general, Brigid McManus, hope the new appointments will give the Department more breathing space to consider long-term policy issues.

Both would like to shift emphasis away from the usual fire-fighting and towards the big issues such as science, innovation and the "Knowledge Economy".

Meanwhile, Mary Hanafin is said to be already mulling over her speeches to the annual round of teacher conferences in early March. Hanafin has been enthusiastically received for the last three years, but with no money from benchmarking for the teachers and a tighter education budget, some suggest a cooler reception for the Minister this year. It should be fascinating to see how it all plays out. The teacher conferences may be over-long and over-hyped, but the huge media coverage shapes the public's view of the Minister for Education.

•Here's a gag that's on everyone's lips down at UCC - what have impressive UCC boss Michael Murphy and Superman got in common? That's right - both put on their cloak before going to work.

Let me explain . . . During a conferring in December, Murphy, a medical doctor, rushed to provide help when a parent suddenly collapsed. An A&E nurse gave CPR and the president - in full academic regalia - also offered assistance.

Happily, the victim has fully recovered. But the legend of Superman stalking the halls of UCC lives on.

•That interview with Peter Sutherland in Paul Sweeney's new book Ireland's Economic Successunleashed a predictable response from the teacher unions, which were blamed for "unaccountable" teachers.

But much of it was thought-provoking. Here's Sutherland on mixed-ability schooling: "I also disagree with the whole theory that you should not permit selection on testing of intellect to enter certain schools . . . In London the top day schools have a system which produces very good students because the classes contain similar levels of ability."

•Some annoyance in education circles, we hear, about DIT's demand for university status. Some senior figures believe the college might have been better advised to hold its fire until the big move to the €1 billion Grangegorman campus in 2011.

DIT may have a strong case for university status, but here's a strange one - few senior figures in higher education give the college a ghost of a chance pre- Grangegorman.

E-mail us at teacherspet@irish-times.ie