Athruithe go leor ar na bacáin
October 31, 2012
VEC turns to North as it can’t fill language teacher jobs
October 25, 2012
A SHORTAGE of language teachers has forced schools to advertise for staff in Northern Ireland.
Although thousands of teachers are struggling for work, Co Louth Vocational Education Committee (VEC), which runs five schools, has advertised vacancies in the ‘Belfast Telegraph’ newspaper.
The ad, placed last Monday, is seeking German and Spanish teachers as well as those who can teach a range of subjects through the medium of Irish, starting next September. Co Louth VEC chief executive officer Padraig Kirk said their schools were experiencing “significant difficulties” in recruiting qualified teachers.
Border
The VEC, which has also had problems recruiting teachers of French and Russian, looked over the Border after two ads placed in the Republic failed to fill the vacancies.
The problem is not unique to Co Louth and Ferdia Kelly of the Joint Managerial Body, representing secondary school management, said shortages had been noted in recent years.
Meanwhile, Dublin schools could find it difficult to get Irish teachers, Clive Byrne of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals said. New regulations ensuring schools recruit only qualified and registered teachers may be contributing to the difficulties. Previously, a school may have fallen back on a teacher who was proficient in a subject but not properly qualified.
www.independent.ie
Parents to begin voting on who runs their local primary schools
October 22, 2012
PARENTS are to start voting on who they want to run their local school, in a historic step for Irish education.
The move is aimed at reducing the dominance of the Catholic Church in primary education and handing over some of the 92pc of schools it currently controls to other patron bodies. The church agrees that greater choice is required to reflect recent cultural and ethnic changes and will divest schools to other patrons in line with parental demand.
From today, surveys are being carried out in five of 44 initial areas where the Department of Education has identified a potential demand for greater diversity because of limited choice and no plans to open a new school. The five areas are: Arklow, Co Wicklow; Castlebar, Co Mayo; Tramore, Co Waterford; Trim, Co Meath and Whitehall, Dublin, while the remaining 39 will vote in November.
Parents and guardians of preschool and primary schoolchildren in each area will be surveyed and they will have to supply the PPS number of the parent in receipt of child benefit to confirm that they are eligible to participate. Parents will initially be asked if they want a wider choice of school patrons, and will then be asked to vote in order of preference for the alternative patrons who have expressed an interest in running schools in their areas. They’ll also be asked if they prefer single sex or co-educational schools and if they would prefer an Irish-speaking or English-speaking school.
The Department of Education will run local media campaigns to get the word out, while information will also be available in schools and from the patron bodies. The survey will largely be conducted online, but there will also be a paper-based option for parents, and surveys must be submitted before November 9.
If a demand for alternative patronage is identified, the department will explore with the existing patrons the transfer of patronage of schools. It is impossible to estimate how many of the 3,000 Catholic primary schools will ever be handed over, and at what pace, but Education Minister Ruairi Quinn wants to name the first batch by next June.
The surveys follow on from recommendations from the Advisory Group to the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector, which set out a roadmap for the handover process.As well as providing greater choice on grounds of religion, the advisory body also highlighted a need for more allIrish schools. Mr Quinn described it as a historic opportunity for parents to reshape the primary school landscape for generations to come and urged all those eligible to make sure that their voices were heard. He said for many parents this would be the first time they would have a real say in the type of primary school they want their children to go to, whether it was denominational, multi-denominational, allIrish or another kind.
The survey process will be overseen by the independent New Schools Establishment Group and detailed reports on the outcomes will be published. The department has set up a free helpline for anyone who has any difficulties with the survey – 1800 303621 – which will be open Monday to Friday, 9.30am-1pm and 2pm-5pm.
www.independent.ie
Up to 5,000 teachers in the firing line for cuts
October 15, 2012
MORE than 5,000 teachers face losing their allowances under a government review.
One of the targets is an allowance of between €532 and €1,572 paid to more than 2,750 primary and post-primary principals. Two in three of the country’s principals are in receipt of the payment for acting as secretary to the school board of management. The payment of a similar allowance to principals acting as secretary to a board of management in an institute of technology is also under scrutiny. Special allowances paid to teachers who teach through Irish, work in the Gaeltacht or who work on an island, are also being targeted for abolition.
The Gaeltacht grant is worth €3,063 to about 780 primary and post-primary teachers, while about 1,800 receive an annual €1,583 for teaching through Irish. About 30 teachers are in receipt of the island allowance, which is worth €1,842 per year. Department of Public expenditure and Reform general secretary Robert Watt has told the Department of Education that these were the priority for elimination. The proposal will now be discussed with the trade unions.
www.independent.ie
Tá eagla orm ahead of Gaelscoil grilling
October 15, 2012
I’ve been summoned to an interview for a primary school.
Not for me — for Miss Almost Nine Months old. Yes, seriously! Apparently, it’s time to secure a place for September 2016. We decided on a Gaelscoil, so a friend advised me to speak as Gaeilge during the interview to create the ‘right’ impression. So … this very bun-leibheal mammy will attempt to caint enough Gaeilge to wedge little missy’s foot firmly in the doras. Oh ta eagla orm! I really didn’t expect this but perhaps it’s to check if I’ll tuig the parent-teacher meetings. Of course, if she’s like mise, I’ll get by on ‘Cailin dana’ agus ‘Ta si ag caint gan stad!’
Now, when it comes to Conas ata tus, I can hold my own and even show off with my Dia is Muire Duit a Iosa. But beyond that, it’s going to be an uphill struggle — which is a disgrace and why we want her to go to a Gaelscoil and acquire more than just a cupla focal. Agus Dadai? He’s suggested that he doesn’t attend as his Irish is limited to “Ta an-athas orm an corn seo a ghlacadh ar foireann Uibh Fhaili”. Mind you, with him being a Biffo, it’s a rare occasion that he gets to say or hear it! So it’s just mise. But I’ve a plan. I’m going to replicate my Irish oral exam; learn and regurgitate a big spiel as soon as I’m asked a question, any question, thus preventing the muinteoir from getting a word in edgeways.
It’s a risky strategy I know, but my only other Irish trick is to do my one, two, threes. They are rather impressive. I think. I could even put my hands behind my back and accompany it with a rendition of Aon Focal Eile. But dadai assures me that whatever damage my Gaeilge or his GAA speech might do, my dancing would be a fait accompli.
Let’s just hope they don’t read this! If they do, gabh mo leithsceal, ta bron orm.
www.independent.ie
Education faces a new test
October 5, 2012
FOR all its critics, the Irish educational system gets more right than wrong.
But a hardy perennial, when it comes to complaints, is the cry that our second- level schools teach by rote and that stressed students, in both the junior and senior cycles, resort to cramming in the home straight.
Yesterday Education Minister Ruairi Quinn announced a radical shake- up of the junior cycle by heralding the scrapping of the Junior Certificate, replacing it with a system of continuous assessment.
As much as 40pc of the assessment of each subject will be based on schoolwork and the rest in the shape of written exams by teachers.
Under this system there will still be standardised tests in English, Irish, Maths and Science.
This seems a progressive move and perhaps an indication of what might later apply, in some disciplines at least, in the Leaving Cert. But that is another day’s work.
The change, however, has not been unreservedly welcomed. Teachers’ unions have expressed fears that abolishing traditional state exams could erode parents’ trust in the system.
And then there is the issue of the necessary resources to fashion this new assessment process. Are there any?
The first batch of pupils to experience this brave new world start secondary school in the autumn of 2014.
That doesn’t give the Department of Education a whole lot of time to iron out any wrinkles, but plenty of time for its critics to expose any lingering flaws.
www.independent.ie
There’s just no getting away from Dumbo in the corner
October 1, 2012
The promotion of the Irish language is the one thing that is unchallenged in RTE, writes Declan Lynch
IN the Henry Root letters, the author writes to the queen, noting that she always seems to be opening things, and wondering if, for a change, she might consider closing a few things — the BBC, the Guardian, and so on.
In that spirit, Root would have given a broad welcome to the recent closure of RTE’s London office, though perhaps understandably, this was not the reaction of RTE’s departing London correspondent Brian O’Connell. His piece in the Irish Times last week, in which he described the closure as an endorsement of “Ryanair journalism” which betrayed RTE’s public service obligations, was interesting in a number of ways.
For a start, it may be the only article ever written by a journalist resigning after 20 years in the job, which did not kick off with a few hilarious anecdotes — O’Connell’s reluctance to indulge in such vulgarities even in his swansong was almost admirable. He wrote of “a lack of any nuanced approach to cost-cutting”, which is no doubt true, and yet one felt that there were other nuances involved here, which did not quite come across in O’Connell’s analysis. For example, the first reaction of many intelligent people to the closure of the London “bureau” would be to question why they are closing London when they could have just closed down the Washington bureau about 10 years ago and hardly anybody — even Charlie Bird during that unhappy time when he was actually the US correspondent — would have minded at all. And why are they still maintaining a Connemara bureau or whatever it is they call the place where they make An Nuacht and other such lamentable wastes of public space?
Whatever their limitations, no bureau in London or Washington or anywhere else should be closed as long as we’re looking at “an eilifint ins an seomra” which recently appeared during an item on Morning Ireland about this country being one of only two in Europe in which the learning of a foreign language is not compulsory for schoolchildren.
In an interview with UCD professor Vera Regan, presenter Cathal MacCoille made the point that since English is usually the foreign language being taught in other countries, and since we already have English, perhaps the situation is not so bad. Which was fair enough. He also quoted a Department of Education line that the learning of Irish and English provides a “scaffolding” for the later learning of a foreign language — erring on the side of generosity, he did not mention that it was also a “scaffolding” for bullshit. But mainly he managed not to make the point that our children do indeed learn a language which for the vast majority involves a process similar to the one whereby children in other countries learn a foreign language. Therefore, to all intents and purposes, Irish is the foreign language that is taught in our schools. And whether you regard that as a good thing or a bad thing, for a man as meticulous as MacCoille not to mention it, is a most extraordinary thing.
You wonder has the devotion to “an eilifint ins an seomra” become so institutionalised out there, we may see the closure of the Cork bureau, the Galway bureau and the Belfast bureau and still there’ll be someone reading An Nuacht every day with nobody looking at them? So there is an ideological dimension to these cuts — arguably the promotion of the Irish language is now the core ideology of RTE, the one thing that is unchallenged and undiminished.
Against this, your London bureau wouldn’t stand a chance. But its usefulness could be challenged on other grounds, not least the fact that, as O’Connell writes, “for decades RTE has been a member of the Westminster lobby system, RTE and the Irish Times being the only two foreign news organisations to hold such membership”. This in itself should be grounds for abolition. The “lobby system” encourages one of the lowest forms of journalism, all the more damnable because it is regarded so highly by the hacketariat. Let us just say that any time that a correspondent spends on the inside track at Westminster, when he could be on the outside track talking to poor Paddy up in Kilburn and Cricklewood, is dead time.
In general, we should always be sceptical when large organisations devote so much of their resources to the issue, of, well, “resources”, rather than to the issue of simply getting better at what they do. While some aspects of broadcasting and of journalism are indeed substantially about “resources”, there are other considerations — for example, there’s an exceptionally good programme on Lyric FM called The Blue of the Night. It starts at 10’clock, just after Off the Ball has finished on Newstalk. Which means that every night in Ireland there are five straight hours of high-class radio, and though I am taking a wild guess here, I would say that the whole lot of it put together costs about 30 quid. Sometimes the problem is not that too much money is being spent, but that the wrong people are getting it.
For The Blue of the Night, there’s the consolation that while its presenters are not getting, say, €575,000 a year, they may escape what Brian O’Connell regards as crude cuts. But still, a few “Irish” nights would do them no harm.
www.independent.ie
Only one in 25 primary pupils takes foreign language
September 24, 2012
JUST one in 25 primary school pupils is learning a foreign language – as Ireland continues to lag far behind its European neighbours.
Ireland and Scotland are the only countries where learning a foreign language at school is not compulsory, the new report published by the European Commission revealed yesterday.
Only around 4pc of primary pupils learn a foreign language – usually French. This compares with 100pc of children picking up foreign language skills in Austria and Italy, where it is compulsory. Yet the report paints an entirely different picture at EU level as it reveals children are starting to learn foreign languages at an increasingly early age. Most children begin when they are between six and nine.
The importance of teaching foreign language skills made headlines earlier this year when online company PayPal revealed it was having trouble finding Irish workers with the necessary language skills to fill 1,000 new jobs.
The IDA, which is charged with attracting foreign investors, admitted it was “challenging” for multinationals to find workers with foreign languages. Cara Greene, education manager at the Science Foundation Ireland- funded Centre for Next Generation Localisation ( CNGL) at DCU, said foreign languages were essential throughout the school system to ensure there are “people there to fill the jobs in the future”.
‘Future’
The Government cut the budget for 2012 for the Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative ( MLPSI), which supports the learning of foreign languages in over 550 primary schools nationally.
“It is really about having the skills there for the future, if you are cutting it this early it doesn’t look good for jobs in language services in the future.
Ms Greene highlighted the importance of the growth of localisation – which combines foreign language skills with computers and allows companies introduce products to new markets in their own language – as a boom industry.
“We’re struggling to get people now and it is so important there is actually jobs in the area. We want students to do the crossover of languages and computing in college,” she said, emphasising this required a strong languages base at both primary and secondary level.
The department last night said the languages taught at primary school level were being reviewed.
www.independent.ie
Parents get vote to take schools out of control of the Church
September 18, 2012
PARENTS will start voting within weeks on whether they want to hand over a Catholic primary school in their area to another patron body.
In a ground-breaking move, the Department of Education will seek the views of parents in five areas on the demand for a change in patronage, and their preference for who should run the schools.
The Irish Independent has learned that three of the five areas to be surveyed are Trim, Co Meath; Tramore, Co Waterford; and Arklow, Co Wicklow.
The fourth and fifth will be in Dublin and Co Mayo, although final decisions have yet to be made on the particular areas.
Change
The surveys of five areas is the first step in the process and will be followed in November with similar plebiscites in 39 other towns or suburbs identified as potentially ripe for change.
The historic move is aimed at reducing the control of the Catholic Church in primary education and offering parents greater choice to reflect the cultural and religious mix in Irish society generally.
The Catholic Church currently runs 92pc of primary schools and has accepted that it is no longer tenable for it to operate so many schools. Apart from societal changes, there are fewer priests to help with the running of schools.
The areas selected for surveys are where primary schools are exclusively of a Catholic ethos, or where there is very limited choice, with, perhaps, one non-Catholic school among six or more.
Each of the 44 areas has been selected because each has a relatively stable population and so the need for diversity cannot be addressed by opening new schools.
In June, the Department of Education invited patron bodies interested in taking over the running of schools in the 44 areas to lodge expressions of interest.
The survey will be online, or paper-based, and open to parents of a pre-school or school-going child, resident in the area concerned. The form, which will be returned to the department, will include a link to the website of each prospective patron body where parents can get more information about the type of school proposed.
Patron bodies are expected to actively campaign for support for their proposals, but will be subject to a code of practice.
Following the completion of the surveys, there will be consultations with communities in line with parental preferences, on the final shape of the primary school network in the area. It is impossible to estimate how many of the 3,000 Catholic primary schools will ever be handed over to another patron body, and at what pace.
However, based on the survey process about to get under way, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has set next June as the deadline for the naming of the first batch.
– Katherine Donnelly
Irish Independent
Call for schools to make Mandarin a priority
September 14, 2012
SCHOOLS should spend less time on Irish and French – and teach Chinese instead, an education leader said yesterday.
The teaching of Mandarin must become a priority for schools and third- level colleges, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn was told.
It could be done by diverting resources from other languages, according to the president of the Irish Vocational Education Association ( IVEA), Noel O’Connor. The former teacher, from Mallow, Co Cork, told the IVEA annual conference that the global race was on for Chinese investment and Ireland was in danger of being left behind. Later, Mr O’Connor told the Irish Independent that students learning one language often benefited from learning another language.
He said diverting some resources from other parts of the curriculum, such as Irish and French, to teach Chinese, would not mean that they would suffer as a consequence.
Mr O’Connor said Sweden was committed to teaching Chinese in all primary schools by 2021, and in all schools eventually, while it was the fastest growing language taught in the US. He told the conference that, as a small, open economy Ireland could be transformed by Chinese investment.
www.independent.ie
