Audit of primary teachers sought as pupil numbers rise 10,000
June 30, 2014
School principals have called for an audit of teaching resources as new figures published today confirm the number of primary school pupils has surged by almost 10,000. Clive Byrne, the director of National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, said the key annual statistics for 2013-14 academic year highlighted the need for providing sufficient teachers in the “priority subjects” of the future.
While he welcomed the recruitment of 1,000 extra teachers this year to protect the staff-student ratio, he said: “It is equally vital that there is the correct match between the subjects most in demand and sufficient numbers of teachers qualified to teach these subjects”. He noted the Government had placed great emphasis on positioning Ireland as a global tech hub, “making it essential that we have sufficient numbers of teachers qualified to teach in science, computing and maths subjects.
“We have called on the Minister for Education to undertake a full audit of our teaching resources for the years ahead. This audit would include examining the numbers of teachers expected to retire in the years ahead; the subjects they currently teach and an analysis of whether we will have sufficient teaching graduates qualified to teach the priority subjects in the years ahead.”
The department statistics for 2013-14 academic year show that the number of children at primary school has increased by 9,895 at primary level to 528,562. The number at post-primary (excluding PLCs) has increased by 4,331 to 333,175. The primary pupil-teacher ratio has dropped slightly from 16.4 to 16.3, while it remains constant at second level at 13.9. Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn said this reflected the way the Government had “prioritised education” at a time of financial crisis.
The total number of primary schools is now at 3,286, down seven on last year. This decrease is a combination of the establishment of 16 new schools, mainly in areas of growing population, and the closure or amalgamation of 23 schools.
There are now 1,351 primary schools with fewer than 100 pupils, with 600 of these having fewer than 50. The average class size in primary schools has remained relatively unchanged, at 24.8.
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Quinn challenges church over patronage of schools
April 22, 2014
Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn has thrown down a challenge to the Catholic Church to give concrete examples of how its schools can be “genuinely inclusive” for children of all faiths and none.
In an address to be delivered at a teacher union conference this morning, Mr Quinn says is it “disappointing” that the church has failed to provide such information to his department as had been promised in previous discussions.
He also suggests that, in developing policies on inclusivity, Catholic schools in areas where there is no alternative patronage should consider timetabling faith formation at the start or end of the day to minimise disruption to class.
The intervention comes just days after Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin called for an acceleration of reforms to achieve a “plurality of patronage” in Irish education. In an interview with The Irish Times , the archbishop said he believed “a more robust collaboration” between the church and the Department of the Education “would make these things move a little quickly”.
Robust collaboration
Picking up on these comments, Mr Quinn says: “I look forward to working with Archbishop Martin and others to develop that robust collaboration.”
He notes that one of the issues highlighted by the report of the forum on pluralism and patronage in 2012 is “respecting a child’s rights not to receive religious instruction”.
Some 1,700 of the State’s 3,200 primary schools are in areas where there is no alternative school – and thus local children are typically obliged to accept Catholic patronage.
White Paper
Mr Quinn is developing a White Paper on inclusivity in these “standalone” schools and he urges the church to engage fully in this process.
“We are regularly told that our denominational schools are inclusive and there is anecdotal evidence that this is true in many cases – thanks to the good work of teachers, who are determined to welcome all children.
“However, we need clearly demonstrated examples of genuinely inclusive schools, so that other schools can learn what works for them.
“It is regrettable that, two years after the publication of the forum report, we have yet to see such exemplars furnished by the Catholic Church – the main patron of primary schools in this country. That is disappointing, but I remain convinced of the importance of having such exemplars, to help guide the approach in all of our schools.”
While he says he doesn’t wish to be prescriptive about policies on inclusivity, there are suggestions that could be usefully aired.
“For example we could have more flexible timetabling for religious education. One possibility, raised in the forum report, was for religion classes to be held at different times for different class groups. This would allow students opting out of religion classes to participate in another class. Such an arrangement could work better in larger schools.
“Another option in some cases would be to have faith formation at the start or end of a school day.”
Mr Quinn points out that, aside from the white paper, these issues might also be addressed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment this October in its consultation proposals for the revision of the primary curriculum.
“This will again allow for an examination of timetabling religion at the start or end of the school day, or scheduling religion at different times for different classes in larger schools.”
Noting his views on this topic “have often been misrepresented”, Mr Quinn expresses his long-time admiration for Catholic theologian, Hans Küng, and says it is important to differentiate between faith formation, and education about religion and beliefs.
“Education about religion and beliefs, as I have said repeatedly, is an essential component of any well-rounded education.”
Faith formation, he says “is equally important for many families; indeed for most families” and the rights of these families are clearly outlined in the constitution. But “so too are the rights of families who wish to allow their children to opt-out of this aspect of religious education.”
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Volunteerism of teachers keeping society going, says Cody
April 22, 2014
The volunteerism of teachers is “essentially what is keeping our society going”, Kilkenny hurling manager and school principal Brian Cody said in a speech backing his union’s critique of Government policy.
Addressing the annual congress of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation in his home city, Cody praised fellow members for the work they did outside office hours in sport, music, drama and community or charity work.
Volunteering by teachers was “happening all over the country”, he said. “I think we are all duty-bound to pass on that sense of volunteering to the children we work with every single day because if that volunteerism ever disappears from our society then we are really going to be in a sorry state; then we will really have a recession.”
Cody was invited to speak in response to the INTO president’s address, which was strongly critical of Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn for overseeing cuts in teacher resources, increasing pupil-teacher ratios in small schools and creating “initiative overload”.
Opening the INTO’s 146th congress, Brendan O’Sullivan told the 800 delegates Mr Quinn was contributing to low morale in the classroom by being “overly negative” about the quality of teaching and learning.
“I am not saying everything in the garden is rosy . . . but I would call for a balanced assessment that doesn’t smack of a cowboy builder trying to talk up the state of disrepair in a job to give a misleading impression of his own work.”
Mr O’Sullivan cited as a good news story the recent Pisa survey results showing Ireland’s 15-year-olds were the fourth most literate in the OECD and were performing significantly above the OECD average in mathematics and science (13th and ninth respectively). Yet the Minister focused only on areas of criticism from the study.
Mr Quinn is due to speak to INTO delegates this morning before travelling to the conferences of the other two teacher unions, the ASTI and the TUI.
Informing the Minister of the likely reception he would receive, Mr O’Sullivan said: “In my nearly 40 years teaching I do not believe I have ever witnessed a more demoralised teaching force.”
‘Drowning in reports’
He called for a “moratorium on initiatives”, saying teachers were “drowning in . . . the reports and paper trails which are their inevitable consequences”.
The INTO president challenged the Government’s claim that class sizes had not increased, saying schools with one-four teachers had endured class size increases over the last two years. This was an issue that could “feature strongly in the forthcoming local elections”, he remarked.
Resources to children with special needs had been cut by 15 per cent, while teachers’ salaries had fallen by about 20 per cent on average. This represented a choice by the Government to “visit pain” on ordinary workers “rather than levy a tax on wealth”, introduce a financial transaction tax, or seek “a fair contribution from the multinationals”.
Of the president’s address, Mr Cody said: “I think he stole some of my speech”, and went on to talk about the importance of being ambitious as a profession and to set the highest of standards. He noted one of the things he learnt from sport was “excuses are a dangerous thing”, and it was better to banish them and instead “look at the reasons why you weren’t successful”.
A survey of INTO members published yesterday showed nearly two thirds were dissatisfied with their pay levels and conditions of employment, while half said they did not have enough time for additional non-teaching responsibilities.
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The bilingual brain is more nimble and efficient
April 22, 2014
I have occasional bursts of enthusiasm to learn French. But now I have an extra incentive to stick with it because research is increasingly showing that, if you know two or more languages, your brain is better than those who know just one language. Multilingual people are better at reasoning, multitasking, reconciling conflicting ideas. They work faster, with less effort, and retain their cognitive faculties better as they age. The research that underpins this story is summarised by Jeffrey Kluger in Time (July 29th, 2013).
The human brain can be bilingual even before birth. The foetus in the womb can hear the mother’s voice from the beginning of the third trimester (six months), and the speech rhythms of her language(s) pour into the baby’s brain and comfort him/her. The vigour with which a baby sucks on a soother is a measure of how stimulated it is by its environment, and this technique has been used to study babies three days old and younger. When played recordings of multiple languages, babies with monolingual English-speaking mothers suck harder only when they hear English; those with mothers who speak English and French suck harder when they hear either language (Krista Byers-Heinlein and others, Psychological Science , January 29th, 2010).
Babies who are a few months old can recognise language on sight of the speaker alone. From four to six months, babies from both monolingual English homes and bilingual English-French homes can tell the difference between English and French when watching silent videos of adults reading from The Little Prince in English and French, but by eight months only the bilinguals can do this.
Suppressed response
Other research has shown that seven-month-old babies raised in a bilingual home can suppress a previously learned response, whereas babies raised in a monolingual home cannot. Both sets of babies watched a screen and learned that when they heard certain words a puppet always appeared on the same side of the screen – their eyes would turn to that side on hearing the words. In the second part of the experiment the puppet moved to the other side of the screen when cued by the words. Bilingual babies anticipated the new location but not monolingual babies (A Kovacs, Proceedings National Academy of Sciences , 2009).
Indications are that the benefits of early-language training in children will be considerable and may be discernible in brain structure. It is well-known, for example, that motor-control regions in the brain governing finger action are particularly well-developed in violinists and other musicians. But which comes first – are you pre-disposed to be talented because of your brain structure or does training cause changes in the brain?
Kluger describes an experiment carried out at Lund University in 2012 to answer this question. Students at the Armed Forces Interpreter Academy taking a gruelling language course that brings them from no knowledge to fluency in 13 months were compared to students taking equally rigorous courses in medicine or cognitive science. Students’ brains were scanned before and after completion of the course. The language students showed significant growth in the hippocampus area of the brain, which helps govern memory and mastery of new material, and in other areas, where higher order reasoning is processed. There was no change among the other students.
The bilingual brain is more efficient. Constant juggling to choose between two words for every object/concept is great practice at doing several things at once. How deftly one can multitask is approximately measured in the Stroop test. Names of colours are flashed on a screen, with the colours of the letters matching the word, and subjects must say the colour’s name. This is easily done. Next the flashes are mismatched – the colour doesn’t match the word. Subjects must again say the colour – this is not so easy. Bilinguals are faster than monolinguals and make fewer mistakes (Ellen Bialystok, Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology , 2011).
The advantages of multilingualism are particularly important for older people. Not only are older bilingual brains more nimble than monolingual, but they don’t have to work as hard. Studies of older people suffering from cognitive decline indicate that bilinguals get an extra 4.1 years of clarity before signs of dementia show up – and those who develop Alzheimer’s get an extra 5.1 years. Now where is that Teach Yourself French book?
William Reville is an emeritus professor of biochemistry at UCC.
understandingscience.ucc.ie
An Irishwoman’s Diary
April 15, 2014
Debate surrounding the Irish language has recently been bubbling up again on this page.
It is heartening, however, to remember that we are not alone with our minority language challenge. As part of my research into Basque/Spanish language policy with the University of Deusto in Bilbao several years ago I discovered that the tapestry of people who had passionate thoughts and feelings about Basque was as rich and varied as that at home concerning Irish.
Living in an officially bilingual society abroad felt like encountering a long lost twin with whom you discover you have much in common. Yet, as you delve deeper, you realise there are differences.
Basque culture and language suffered repression under Franco’s regime; the region experienced huge emigration in the 19th century, losing at least three-quarters of its population to America; the language came to be regarded as only fit for peasants; Spanish became the language of sophistication and commerce; the cause became political and violent and the language a symbol of identity and freedom. The sentiment behind the phrase tiocfaidh ár lá is still cherished by many who want full independence from Spain.
In contrast to the Gaeltachts, however, the Basque Country is a wealthy, industrialised region; it already had a wealthy merchant class in the 1500s. Its language has been supported constitutionally by the autonomous Basque government since 1978 and is required for a job in the civil service. The exams are not a pushover. Most spend months and years preparing for them.
One other very big difference is that the equivalent of our gaelscoileanna – ikastolas – have been in existence since the 1980s and have proven such a success that in a private university in San Sebastian half the degree courses are offered through Basque.
A strong government policy and a pride in culture and language have obviously helped. Even the word to describe a Basque person – Euskaldun – actually means “Basque-speaker”, so identity is intrinsically linked with their language. Indeed, the Basque language is visible and audible on a daily basis in all walks of life. The conundrum, however, is that while the percentage of people who know Basque has increased the percentage who use it with other Basque speakers in everyday life has decreased.
What’s the point in saying that a language is a way of expressing a nation if the majority of the people who know it aren’t actively speaking it? And how do we peacefully merge the native and non-native speakers without one accusing the other of being a “language snob”? Surely, it’s using the knowledge of the language that matters and not merely having it stored in the language compartment of your brain?
What if we were trying to revive Irish traditional music but it was confined to our classrooms? Why try to sustain such a thing as a native language if it is not going to play an intrinsic part in shaping the nation? And how possible is this if one tries to simultaneously remain open to other nations and play a progressive part in our globalised world?
Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam. If this is true, and I feel it may be, then there is still much work to be done to solve the riddle of how to strengthen any minority language effectively. The Basques have some of the answers, but not all of them. Many people there still feel obliged to learn the language and so are put off by the sense of compulsion. It’s a difficult language for many Spanish speakers to learn and speak. Part of the language movement is politically motivated, which alienates still others.
One of the Basque teaching academies, Zenbat Gara, believes in motivating students to learn the language through enjoyment and concentrates on getting them to experience the culture through activities while actively using and learning the language. Their operation includes a thriving restaurant and the best live music venue in Bilbao. The success rate is high. They may be closer to solving the riddle than most.
We Irish, on the other hand, are in the Basque people’s bad books. The official word on the street is that “the Irish gained their territory and lost their language”, that “the Irish have no pride”. (This from the diehards of the language who have not yet done their research in Ireland as I did there.) The only way I found to counter that was to give them a good blast of the boggiest Connemara Irish I know, throw in a few almighty mallachts and send them on their way. It’s at least one way of keeping the sound of Irish alive.
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Student anger at teacher training changes
April 14, 2014
Move prevents undergraduates applying to begin in September despite reassurances
Students planning to enter a postgraduate training programme for primary school teaching have complained that recent changes to the course structure are preventing them from applying to start this September, despite previous reassurances.
Those enrolled in a year-long Irish language course to obtain the requisite Leaving Certificate honours grade this summer say they will now have to wait a full year to begin the teaching course.
Daragh Garde (30) said he contacted St Patrick’s College in Drumcondra last September to ensure that by sitting his Irish exam this year, he would be eligible to apply for the masters in teaching programme in 2014.
He was advised he would be, but recent changes to the course have brought the application date forward to July – a month before Leaving Cert results are issued. “They have changed the goal posts on us and they have completely ruined my plans. We are six weeks away from doing the Leaving Cert. It’s completely crazy,” he said. Mr Garde said he was one of up to 30 students taking Irish at Ashfield College in Templeogue who had hoped to enter the course in September but would now have to wait.
Intensive programme
St Patrick’s College explained that, along with other colleges of education, it was introducing a professional master of education programme that would extend the original 18-month course to two years, meaning its next start date is September rather than February.
The intensive new programme is open to applicants with an honours bachelor’s degree or those who expect to have successfully completed final examinations before July 4th. This deadline was necessary in order to allow time for processes such as Garda vetting, plus school and Gaeltacht placement, said the college. “Confirmation of Leaving Certificate results in mid-August would be too late, for example, to have students placed in schools in September.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Education explained it had advised individual colleges to adopt a two-year transition period to cushion any potential impact on students but that the mechanics of the change-over was a matter for each individual institution.
St Patrick’s registrar Dr Pádraig Ó Duibhir said that while incorrect advice might have been inadvertently given to people inquiring about the time frame last year, anyone approaching the college recently would have been informed of the changes.
“I appreciate that it’s regrettable; the only explanation I can offer is that it was difficult to anticipate all contingencies a year ahead of time,” he said. It is unclear how many students have been discommoded or how other individual teacher-training colleges are dealing with the matter. The new course structure was publicly advertised last week.
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Coimisinéir Teanga to remain independent
April 7, 2014
The Government has reversed its controversial decision to merge the Office of Coimisinéir Teanga (Language Commissioner) with the Office of the Ombudsman.
Minister of State for the Gaeltacht, Dinny McGinley, said that “following further consideration … and having regard to the results of the public consultation process which indicated strong support for maintaining the Office of An Coimisinéir Teanga as a fully independent entity, the Government has decided not to proceed with the proposed amalgamation”.
The proposed change had been unpopular with language groups who were concerned it would lessen the Language Commissioner’s effectiveness. General Secretary of Conradh na Gaeilge Julian de Spáinn welcomed the decision not to merge the two offices. The focus now should be on strengthening the Official Languages Act to ensure adequate services for the Irish-speaking community, he said Mr McGinley also said that the Government’s decision this week to draft a Bill to amend the Official Languages Act was welcome as the Act was “very important to the Irish language and Gaeltacht communities and it is timely that the appropriate amendments are now made as it has been in place for over ten years”.
The review of the Act had shown that there was “significant demand for Irish-language services which are commensurate with services available in English”.
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Numbers of speakers of Irish
April 7, 2014
Sir, – Your Irish language columnist Caoimhe Ní Laighin misleadingly states in her article(“Cinniúint na Catalóine”, April 2nd) that there are “77,000 cainteoir ag an nGaeilge”.
This is not correct. The number of Irish speakers who claim to use Irish daily “outside the educational system only” should not be equated with the total number of Irish speakers, as your columnist has done. Many Irish speakers living outside Irish-speaking communities do not easily get opportunities on a daily basis to use Irish but they are still Irish-speakers.
In my opinion a better measure of the number of active Irish-speakers is the number of people who claim in census returns to use the language at least weekly outside education. This figure, according to the 2011 census is 188,000 for the 26 counties.
The 2011 census taken in Northern Ireland showed that there were 64,847 people who claimed to be able to understand, read, write and speak Irish. Unfortunately we don’t have figures for daily and weekly users but I would suggest a figure of approximately 16,000 would not be an exaggeration, giving a figure of a little more than 200,000 for the number of people who use Irish on a regular basis within the island of Ireland.
DONNCHA Ó hÉALLAITHE
Gaeltaighde,
Indreabhán,
Co na Gaillimhe
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Reachtaíocht teanga le foilsiú gan mhoill
April 2, 2014
Irish and ‘language snobs’
March 31, 2014
Sir , – A language lives by being spoken. There was a time when Latin was a common school and university subject. In its study, grammar and literature were emphasised, but at the end of the process few, if indeed any, could communicate in a functional way in the language.
Too much of this method was transferred to the learning of Irish, and it produced similar results. In my mid-50s,while working in Vienna, I attended German language courses for a mere two hours a week over a four-year period. German literature was not touched on and from the start, with students of various linguistic backgrounds, German was the only language spoken in class. Tests included comprehension questions on oral recorded passages, usually spoken in strong local accents. At the end of this short period of study I was functional in communicating in normal situations such as shopping, in restaurants, and staying in B&Bs throughout Austria and Germany where, in many cases, the owners spoke no English.
Incidentally I was also able to read with pleasure several German novels and English-language novels in translation. Illiterates can and have throughout the centuries kept languages alive. Study of literature is important but if we are to use Irish as a spoken language the ability to communicate comfortably has to take precedence.
Yours, etc,
ALBERT COLLINS,
Bishopscourt Road,
Cork
A Chara, – While it is apparent that there are diverse opinions on the Irish language, it is clear that Irish-speakers are demanding parity of esteem, and what is wrong with that? What is striking is the negative attitude of some letter-writers towards the language. Daniel Stanford (March 27th) proclaims to all and sundry that he could not read a letter by another reader because “it was in Irish” and that if this practice became widespread he would have to stop reading The Irish Times .
Why would someone bother to take the time to write to a newspaper to announce his ignorance of another language? It would also seem unlikely that The Irish Times has any plans to launch as an Irish language newspaper. I think Mr Stanford and any other anxious readers can rest assured that their preferred monolingual world of journalism is unlikely to be disturbed.
Is mise le meas,
ROB MAC GIOLLARNÁTH,
Simonsridge,
Sandyford,
Dublin 18
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