Middle-class schools tighten their grip on college places
November 22, 2011
WHILE VIRTUALLY every student in middle-class areas proceeds to college, the progression rate is less than 40 per cent across huge swathes of working-class areas in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. The two-tier nature of Irish education is highlighted in the “2011 Irish Times School League Tables” published this morning.
The tables – now in their 10th year – also reveal how there has been only a marginal improvement in the number of pupils from working-class areas progressing to third level.
Several schools in Dublin’s inner city and in other areas, including Tallaght, Blanchardstown, Clondalkin, Donaghmede and Crumlin, still have very low progression rates to college. In both Cork and Limerick, five schools have a progression rate of less than 40 per cent.
In stark contrast, 20 fee-paying schools in the list have a 100 per cent progression rate to third level.
Overall, this year’s list shows fee-paying schools and Gaelscoileanna tightening their grip on the top positions in the league tables. State schools within the “free’’ education scheme perform well in the overall top 50 list, which tracks progression to all third-level colleges.
But they perform less well on tables which track progression to high-points courses in the seven universities, the teacher training colleges and the College of Surgeons.
The top feeder schools to high points courses include Glenstal Abbey in Limerick; Coláiste Íosagáin, Gonzaga College and Loreto St Stephen’s Green in Dublin; Yeats College, a grind school in Sligo; and the fee-paying Sidney Hill in Cork.
The list also tracks the schools that are most successful in securing places in TCD and UCD, the two top-ranked Irish universities. This list is topped by Gonzaga, with Glenstal second. Other Dublin schools that feature prominently in this list include Mount Anville; St Conleth’s in Ballsbridge; Holy Child in Killiney; and Alexandra College in Milltown.
Overall, 31 of the 700-plus second level schools in the State have a 100 per cent progression rate to third level. Many State schools share top position in the overall top 50 list tracking progression to all colleges (including universities, the institutes of technology and other centres).
These include two Cork schools – Convent of Mercy in Fermoy and Coláiste an Spioraid Naoimh in Bishopstown. Several others – including St Benildus in Dublin and Tarbert Community School in Co Kerry – also have a 100 per cent progression rate to college.
Since the State does not publish comparative data on school performance, the Irish Times table is the most comprehensive source of information on schools for parents. Last month, an OECD review of the Irish economic and public service was critical of how “only limited data on comparative school performance is made public’’.
Teagasc ‘teasaí’
November 9, 2011
To Be Honest: An unheard voice in education
November 8, 2011
A parent writes : I can’t believe that children are still being forced to learn Irish in school. I spent thousands of wasted hours in primary and secondary school learning this language and now I can’t speak a word of it. If only, if only, that time had been spent learning maths, science, a modern language or even spent running around the yard I think it would have better served me in later life. I often look back with dismay at all the time I spent banging my head against this difficult and useless subject that any reasonable education system would relegate to a minority elective for those with the specific interest and motivation to learn it. Now I have children of my own. One of them, in particular, is having real literacy problems. We are slowly and painstakingly bringing him up to speed with the rest of the class in his basic reading and writing skills. We’re getting there, but as his classmates are moving ahead to read independently, he is still struggling to get through the most basic readers aimed at younger children.
Now he’s coming home with Irish homework. He’s grappling with whole new families of sounds and spellings, just as he was starting to get a grip on his mother tongue. For him, learning to spell and pronounce Irish words is like unlearning all the rules we’ve been working so hard to get into his head. I can see the poor child looking at me with utter confusion as I turn everything we’ve learned about letter sounds and spelling upside down. And for what? To learn a language he will never use. Even if he wanted to use it, he won’t have the competence because Irish taught in the classroom is a complete waste of time. This is a child who desperately needs as much time as possible spent on basic literacy and numeracy. Instead, he is now spending his time on a confusing, pointless and empty exercise largely designed to keep Gaelgoirs in jobs. When he comes home in the evening with his frankly impossible Irish homework I help him as much as I can. In fact, I’m well able to help him because believe it or not I was actually good at school Irish. I did honours for the Leaving Cert and got a B. But there’s a big difference between learning for the Leaving Cert exam and actually being able to use a subject in the real world. Despite my honours Irish, I cannot even walk into a Connemara pub and order a bowl of soup.
What hope has my son, who is already two classes behind in basic English, in getting grips with, never mind making use of, this minority language? Good luck to people who want to keep the language alive. Let them take their kids to classes after school or send them to Gaelscoils. Let the rest of us learn for the real world, please.
The Irish Times
Quinn supports proposal to abolish Junior Certificate
November 4, 2011
MINISTER FOR Education Ruairí Quinn has backed plans to abolish the existing Junior Certificate and replace it with what is billed as a radically changed junior cycle.
The proposals by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment for reform of the junior cycle in secondary schools were officially released yesterday. Key changes include an upper limit of eight subjects for students, up to 40 per cent of marks for continually assessed project work and optional short courses. The proposed changes will begin on a phased basis in 2014 for first examination in 2017. The proposals were designed to address issues of “curriculum overload, and rote learning”, Mr Quinn said. They would also provide for “greater creativity and innovation” and “more relevant and flexible forms of assessment”, he added. The eight-subject cap would “address the concerns about the backwash effect of the examinations” and ensure rote learning was not at the expense of gaining “critical skills”, he said. Mr Quinn encouraged schools and students to move in the direction of the subject cap “as soon as possible”.
The written exams will also be changed. All subjects will be examined at a common level with shorter exams, with the exception of Irish, English and maths. He welcomed the proposal for a “Level 2” award for students with special needs for whom the Junior Cert is unsuitable. Many of the proposals contained in the Towards a Framework for Junior Cycle document drawn up by the council had been flagged last month. The reduction in the content of the syllabus would make space for “active learning and the embedding of key skills”, he said. Concerns that Mr Quinn said needed to be considered were implications for timetable and delivery in schools, avoiding the risk of dumbing down and how time demands of literacy and numeracy would be met. The department will now begin to assess the resource implications. Resources and modern technology would allow for professional development in more cost-effective ways, he said. Chairman of the council Prof Tom Collins said the launch of the proposals with the support of the Minister represented “a historic achievement” for the council. He said the current social and economic crisis had played a part in shaping the proposals. Mr Quinn yesterday sought the co-operation of teachers and schools in implementing the proposed changes. However, teacher unions raised some concerns about the details and funding of the project. The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland said the plans must be made “fail-proof” before they were introduced.
Union general secretary Pat King said there was “an urgent need to fill the significant information gaps” in the document, which would be immediately evident to teachers who read it. There had been “dozens” of questions from teachers to the union’s head office. The Teachers Union of Ireland said it accepted the need for reform but this must be “underpinned by a full commitment to the availability of the necessary resources for the implementation of any change”. General secretary Peter MacMenamin said there was a “real fear” among teachers that without these resources, reform “could do more harm than good at a time when the education system is struggling to tread water”.
MAIN POINTS: JUNIOR CERT REFORM:
The maximum number of subjects for assessment in the junior cycle will be eight, or seven subjects plus two short courses, or six subjects plus four short courses. Subjects will be assessed through a written examination, which will generally make up 60 per cent of marks. Some 40 per cent of marks will be through a portfolio marked by the class teacher, moderated by the school and subject to external moderation. Subjects will be reduced to 200 hours, expect for the core subjects of Maths, Irish and English, which will be 240 hours. Six key skills will be embedded in subjects: managing myself, staying well, communications, being creative, working with others and managing information and thinking. All students will be required to cover 24 statements of essential learning in such areas as communications, mathematical concepts, critical thinking, citizenship, environmental knowledge, consumer skills and appreciating art.
Details of proposals at ncca.ie/juniorcycle
The Irish Times – Genevieve Carbery
An Irishwoman’s Diary
November 1, 2011
MY first starring role came this year when I was asked to take part in a small film, Cuireadh Chun Cainte , which is currently being screened at second-level schools all around the country.
The half-hour film aims to guide students through the newly structured oral Irish exam. Current Leaving Cert students will do the exam for the first time in the spring next year. The newly devised oral Irish exam will represent a maximum of 40 per cent in the Leaving Cert Irish exam as opposed to the maximum 25 per cent a student could hope to gain in the past. During September, a DVD of the film was sent to every second-level school in Ireland. The offer of the part in the film came out of the blue, when I was contacted by an executive at Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge, the central steering council for the Irish language community, which co-ordinated and orchestrated the film’s making along with Irish teachers’ representative group, Comhar na Múinteoirí Gaeilge. As a former examiner of the Oral Irish exam at Leaving Cert level, I drew a little on my own experiences in the mid 1980s when I arrived to play the part. As in any exam situation, the arrival of the examiner into a school creates a maelstrom of emotions, and consequently, our film, Cuireadh Chun Cainte , could be seen as a story of fear and loathing, of trial and retribution, of birth and rebirth!
Students sit in terror outside a door, waiting to be called in by the examiner, a complete stranger, for a conversation. In my experience, it is the arrival of the examiner at a school which creates that crucial tension when students can become nervous, excited or even monosyllabic. My character had to be stern yet approachable, friendly without being overly familiar. Cuireadh Chun Cainte , which literally means “an invitation to talk”, is the story of what happens when students are asked to converse in Irish, read poetry in Irish, pose questions, talk about themselves and generally exhibit their levels of fluency in Irish. The film was made in a southside Dublin secondary school. The phonetics and clarity of the words were uppermost in our minds at all times. Éamonn Ó Dónaill, director of education at the Irish training and language consultancy, Gaelchultúr, was the film’s linguistic consultant. He was on set at all times to monitor the various dialects that cropped up. As someone who comes from the small Gaeltacht of An Rinn in the Déise in west Co Waterford, which has its own dialectic character with words, grammatical characteristics and phonetic idiosyncrasies that are found only in this one corner of the world, I was curious to know how my pronunciation of certain words and phrases would be viewed: but all dialects were treated respectfully and allowed breathe, as long as the meaning was clear at all times and the dialogue was understandable. “Sally, not Hally,” offered Tristan Rosenstock, a member of the production team, Red Shoe Productions, at one stage. “As in Lay Down Sally ,” he explained. “Maybe you’re thinking of Halle, as in Halle Berry,- quipped a voice at the back. “Always,” joked Marcus Lamb, the professional actor who plays the part of the film’s narrator.
I had to think myself into the part of the examiner as I felt that I should play a complex character, a driven educationalist, an everywoman of sorts, whose mission is to separate the wheat from the chaff, the brains from the brawn, the swots from the shirkers, the scholars from the dullards. Like me, those who play the young students in the film were also inexperienced actors. I’m convinced that Honí Ní Chuaig and Ben Ó Mathúin, both secondary pupils themselves, who play the students with speaking parts, will, in time, become stars in their own right. In their roles, they had to read, recite, converse and ask questions of the examiner. A discussion early on in the shoot helped me understand the intensity and commitment to the project of our director, Paschal Cassidy, and our producer, Maggie Breathnach, when they stopped the cameras rolling in order to make a definitive decision about my reading glasses. Should they be left on or off, they wondered. It was a kind of existential dilemma. The said spectacles can embody so much that is educative and traditional, reductive and manipulative in our psyches that it took some moments before filming continued. Mainly, the glasses were left on the table beside me for the duration of the shoot. Since making this film, I find myself watching actors such as Natalie Portman, Kirsten Scott Thomas and Nicole Kidman in a whole new light. I listen to hear how they deliver their lines. I’ve noticed how they rarely look into the camera but at the actor opposite. They impress, each appearing by turn tense, sympathetic or stressed. I find myself wondering how many takes it took to capture a particular scene, and how many times Portman had to say her lines before her director, camera man, sound man and producer all nodded happily as one and she was able to breathe and move onto the next scene. I wonder if she found it difficult to walk naturally towards a table, while steering some young person, and still manage to deliver her lines perfectly, glitch- free and in a natural and fresh way. There will be a special screening of the film at this year’s Oireachtas na Gaeilge 2011 on November 4th at 6 pm in the Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney when the red carpet, undoubtedly, will be rolled out for the stars.
The Irish Times – Catherine Foley
Minister must demand better return on Irish language spend
October 12, 2011
OPINION: To justify its budget, Foras na Gaeilge must play a more assertive role
IN THESE straitened economic times, when “value for money” is the constant refrain, it is appropriate to look at how funds are spent spend money on the promotion of the Irish language. While those inherently hostile to the language will use the economic difficulties for another demand that the language be officially marginalised, all popular surveys show a clear majority of the population value the language and want it protected, advanced and preserved in some way. And the Government has responded to that reality by endorsing the 20-year strategy for the language. We now have a programme for Irish, but how should we bring it forward and what use should be made of State money in this context? These questions are important now because in December the Government will have to appoint a new board for Foras na Gaeilge, the primary State instrument for language policy implementation.
Will it be business as usual, or will the Government take an approach that sets measurable targets and expects results? Foras na Gaeilge is complicated by the fact that it is a North-South implementation body under the terms of the Belfast Agreement. It replaced the previous State board, Bord na Gaeilge, but as a North-South body it is very much constrained by political sensitivities that are not entirely in the Government’s control. Sinn Féin, of course, was anxious during the agreement negotiations to include Irish policy in the list of such bodies, because it would inevitably enhance the status of Irish in the North and create a context for pushing the language there. The South, however, is different. Officially, the language has primary status, but in fact officialdom treats it largely with indifference. A small amount of money suffices to take it off the agenda. This small amount, EUR18 million from two governments this year, has itself been reduced by 10 per cent and further cuts of the same size could be in prospect in the next two budgets. It is vital, therefore, to make sure that this money is used most effectively.
All serious language revivalists (including those who just wish to see the language preserved as a spoken medium) accept there are three main focuses of a coherent language policy. The first is to maintain the economic, social and linguistic vitality of the existing Gaeltachtaí, where Irish remains – in varying degrees of strength – as the spoken vernacular of family and community life. The second is recognising and ensuring legitimate rights of Irish speakers throughout the State (and indeed throughout the island), in terms of public business and cultural servicing in radio and television. And the third is ensuring a public presence of the language, and encouraging community initiatives and especially educational developments such as Gaelscoileanna. The endorsement of the 20-year strategy provides the basis for all of these. Of course, Údarás na Gaeltachta is the key player as regards Gaeltacht policy, and Minister of State for Gaeltacht Affairs Dinny McGinley was very much on the ball when he insisted that the Údarás should keep the industrial development functions that Colm McCarthy’s “Bord Snip Nua” wanted to take from it. The Coimisinéar Teangan, Seán Ó Cuirreáin, is working strongly and effectively as regards public rights, but it is the third pillar that needs strengthening.
Read the minutes of Foras na Gaeilge that are published online, and it becomes apparent that it is a very incestuous set-up. When one set of grant applications is up for discussion, two or three members of the board absent themselves to avoid a conflict of interest. When the next comes up the previous absentees return while another two or three go out. It’s like Lanigan’s Ball, with the music playing to an essentially empty hall. To justify the money spent on it, Foras na Gaeilge needs to play a more assertive role as part of the strategy. Minister for the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan, of course, is under severe constraints: he has to take account of the North-South dimension, with only half of the board for his nomination, and he has to take account of Labour wishes as well as those of his own party. But it is crucial that the new board is not just a collection of county councillors and party connectees. It needs activism, not for the sake of confrontation but to advance the Government’s declared agenda in the strategy, which theoretically at least enjoys the support of all Dáil parties. The Minister knows the leader of the Labour Party, Tánaiste Éamon Gilmore, (as well as the Taoiseach Enda Kenny himself), is favourably disposed to a coherent language policy. This should give him courage to take command of the board, and reshape it as an active instrument for the policy he wants to develop and implement. For while Deenihan is not a fluent speaker of Irish, he is committed to the language. The appointment of a new board is therefore a chance to really develop policy in this area and ensure the “value for money” that the economists demand of us.
The Irish Times – Eoin Ó Murchú
10 Deireadh Fómhair 2011
Samhail nua mhaoinithe le hathrú ó bhonn a dhéanamh
October 5, 2011
Cearta teanga
September 30, 2011
Irish language pack for schools stresses rights
September 30, 2011
STUDENTS FROM Coláiste na Coiribe in Galway were told yesterday by the official Irish Language Commissioner that they were “guardians of an important and endangered aspect of world heritage”.
The students were present at the launch of a new information pack which is to be presented to every second-level school in the country by An Coimisinéir Teanga Seán Ó Cuirreáin. The multimedia educational initiative developed by his office in An Spidéal, Co Galway, aims to give students an insight into language rights in the overall context of universal civil and human rights. Bilingual lessons and projects on the theme will be taught as part of the Junior Certificate course in civil, social and political education, Mr Ó Cuirreáin said yesterday. The initiative was also endorsed by Minister of State for the Gaeltacht Dinny McGinley. The Junior Cert module will address the advantages and challenges of multilingualism, and explore the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The pack for classes includes an award-winning short film, Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom (My Name Is Yu Ming) , about a young Chinese man who learns Irish before visiting Ireland. He experiences communications difficulties at first, until he finds himself a job as a barman in the Gaeltacht. Images of Irish national identity compiled by Nuacht TG4/RTÉ with a soundtrack from The Coronas will form part of a lesson on culture and nationality. A novel element is the inclusion of a set of task cards that will ask students to explain elements of Irish society to a visiting Martian. Another lesson involves developing bilingual stationery and signage. Mr Ó Cuirreáin said that the initiative had been tested in 15 schools on a pilot basis last year. He explained that the module can be taught through Irish, through English or bilingually. “More than anything else, this project should ensure that students are given a context for their learning of Irish in schools and that they understand and respect the concept of language rights,” he said.
Mr Ó Cuirreáín forecast that it could be “potentially the most important initiative undertaken by this office since its establishment, if it sees significant numbers of students each year being taught the importance of language rights”.
The Irish Times
Ceiliúradh scoile
September 21, 2011
