27,000 teachers protest over reform
Márta 12, 2014
TUI members have ‘no confidence’ in plan for new secondary school junior cycle
Teachers protested against the new junior cycle plans yesterday as the Minister for Education defended the programme and rejected claims that the reforms were moving too fast. Staff from up to 750 schools across the country voiced their opposition to the new Junior Cycle Student Award programme they feel would “downgrade” secondary-level education. The demonstration of up to 27,000 teachers was organised by the Teacher’s Union of Ireland (TUI) and ASTI. The Irish Times spoke to TUI president Gerard Craughwell during the protest at Newpark Comprehensive School in Blackrock. He said teachers were angry at Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn’s failure to listen to their concerns. ‘Dangerous experiment’ “This is happening today because of the levels of frustration teachers are feeling,” he said. “We have no confidence in the Minister’s plan. What scares the living hell out of all of us is this is due to start in September. I think this is a dangerous experiment with children’s lives and children’s futures.”
Mr Craughwell said teachers wanted the Government to take another year to examine the plan and sit down for talks. “It’s about the education system we cherish – we built it and we’ll be damned if we let someone destroy it. “Academics are complaining about our own system being dumbed down already and this will make things worse. It’s a grand experiment that has already failed in the UK.” ASTI president Sally Maguire said teachers believed the proposals posed serious threats to education standards. “The key issue here is the assessment: there is no transparency. And how will it be implemented? Will it be the same in Wexford as it is Galway?” Defending changes Mr Quinn has defended the pace of the reforms and rejected claims they would damage the system and affect the performance of pupils. Speaking outside Leinster House yesterday, he said he had slowed down the process to allow full consultation, training and preparation.
“What was supposed to be completed by June 2020, is now going to be stretched out to June 2022,” he said. Mr Quinn said there was some flexibility, but the tradition of having a State examination at the end of third year would no longer happen. “I want to hear from the teachers. They can’t just say we don’t like this and we don’t want to do it. That ship has left the harbour,” he said. Both unions are holding a ballot from their members up to and including strike. The results will be announced on March 26th.
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Teachers to hold lunchtime demonstrations today
Márta 11, 2014
Protests outside schools add to pressure over introduction of junior cycle reform
With nationwide demonstrations today, teachers’ unions and the Department of Education are both increasing the pressure over the introduction of junior cycle reform. The unions are staging a lunchtime protest outside schools, demonstrating against the changes sought by the department, including continual assessment of students by teachers. Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn, in a counter-move, has issued a formal departmental circular to principals and boards of management setting out how and when the junior cycle changes must be introduced this autumn.“We want to send a clear signal to parents, students, teachers and the education partners that we are proceeding with junior cycle reform because it is the right thing to do for the students,” a department spokeswoman said yesterday. “It is a signal from the Minister and the department we are determined to proceed on the reform of the junior cycle from September.”
Lunchtime protest
Union presidents Sally Maguire of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI) and Gerard Craughwell of the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) will lead the national lunchtime protests from Newpark Comprehensive School in Blackrock, Co Dublin. The protest will involve a short rally, with similar demonstrations outside second-level schools across the State. Regular school business will not be disrupted by the action and normal supervision arrangements will remain in place, the unions said. The contents of the circular were up for discussion last January 17th, when education partners including unions, the department, principals and school boards held a working group meeting. The goal was to avoid a clash over the planned junior cycle reforms, but it failed to defuse the situation. Instead the TUI decided to ballot its members on non- co-operation with the department’s reform proposals. Ballot papers will be issued today, with the ballot closing on March 26th. “We acknowledge the publication of this circular letter but it changes nothing as far as we are concerned. “Regrettably it fails to address the issue of resources required to implement the programme,” said Mr Craughwell. Damage The unions believe the reforms could cause lasting damage to the education system. “We believe that student achievement in the new junior cycle must be externally assessed and nationally certified.”
The ASTI was equally dismissive of the circular. “There is nothing new in the circular that wasn’t said on January 17th,” a spokeswoman said. Special training had been planned for teachers, but this amounted to only one day of training up to next September. The ASTI also had a problem with plans to bring in continual assessment to replace a terminal examination. “The English teachers simply don’t know what they are supposed to be doing on continual assessment,” she said. “It [the circular] doesn’t address the key issues for teachers, so nothing has changed,” the ASTI spokeswoman added.
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Irish language under threat
Márta 10, 2014
Sir, – As happens every year or so, the proxy debate over the Irish language rages between those who are “for” it and those “against” it.
I say proxy, because the debate is ostensibly between different theories or value judgments about culture or about one sentiment or another in the letter writers. But only ostensibly. The real issue is not about those different judgments or sentiments of one person or another. It is about the degree to which the judgments and sentiments of one group in society is imposed on another group through the exercise of State power in the education system. The whole debate could disappear by the simple action of making Irish a subject of choice in the Leaving Certificate. Then each contesting group could follow their own judgment and sentiment without having to persuade any other group of their infallibility and without having to take exceptional measures to impose their will on others. – Yours, etc,
DONAL FLYNN
Breffni Terrace,
Sandycove, Co Dublin.
A chara, – While Jason Fitzharris (March 5th) may be correct as to the proportion of census forms filled out in Irish, we must ask why the figure is so low. One valid reason is that the choice is not presented to the participant on the spot, suggesting that they are not available. I had to specially request my form. More hassle to me and to the collectors. If, as in Canada, we had an “active offer” of either language giving citizens a real choice, there would be higher uptake. – Is mise,
MAITIÚ de HÁL,
Páirc na Canálach Ríoga,
Baile an Ásaigh,
Baile Átha Cliath 15.
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Oireachtas call for new school admissions process welcomed
Márta 10, 2014
Parents’ groups have welcomed an Oireachtas committee’s recommendation for a new “independent and transparent appeals process” to oversee schools’ admissions policies.
Áine Lynch, chief executive of the National Parents Council – Primary, said planned legislation aimed at standardising such policies should lead to fewer appeals but “parents do need someone else to go to” when schools fail to adhere to their own admissions policies or national guidelines.
The draft Admissions to School Bill proposes to remove the current system, known as a section 29 appeal, wherbye parents can appeal decisions to the Department of Education.
School managers have expressed some concerns about creating a new appeals process, arguing it may lead to more bureaucracy and create false expectations for parents.
However, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection comes down in favour of an independent appeals mechanism, saying “this could possibly be provided for on a regional basis”.
It says: “Consideration should also be given, in the context of such a process, to provide for independent appeals in relation to the refusal of a school to offer a pupil a place in Transition Year.”
The National Parents Council – Secondary welcomed a separate recommendation for the department to provide resources “within a statutory timeframe” to any school designated to enrol a student with special educational needs.
“If Ruairí Quinn is going to have this new admissions policy he needs to put in place the systems to ensure special educational needs are met, ” the organisation’s spokeswoman, Lynda O’Shea said.
She said her local school in Waterford, St Paul’s, was the only school in the city with units to cater for the needs of children with autism but these were now full, with a waiting list of about eight children.
Alluding to discussions about the Catholic Church surrendering patronage, the committee said: “Multiple patronage and ethos as a basis for policy can lead to segregation and inequality in the education system. The objectives of admission policy should be equality and integration.”
Atheist Ireland welcomed this statement in particular, calling it as “a significant and strongly-worded conclusion”.
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President Higgins’s remarks on Irish
Márta 10, 2014
A chara, – It was somewhat ironic that the reception hosted by President Michael D Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin in honour of Seán Ó Cuirreáin (“Lack of services in Irish dismays Higgins”, Home News, March 6th) took place at exactly the same time as Minister of State for the Gaeltacht Dinny McGinley was being questioned at an Oireachtas subcommittee on the issues raised by Mr Ó Cuirreáin’s decision to retire early from his post as the State’s first coimisinéir teanga.
Speaking “as President of Ireland”, Mr Higgins stated that he was “greatly concerned at the apparent low level of ability to fulfil the rights of citizens who wish to interact through Irish with the State and its agencies”.
Reporting on the big march that took place in Dublin a few weeks ago, your Irish language editor Pól Ó Muirí (Bileog, February 19th) remarked on the gulf which exists between the Irish-speaking community and the general English-speaking public, saying they hardly inhabited the same planet, let alone the same country! As one of the thousands of people who marched down O’Connell Street that day on our way to the Dáil, I have to admit you could not help noticing the puzzled look on the faces of Saturday shoppers as they waited patiently for the buses which were backed up behind us.
A lot of these onlookers, I’d say, were thinking to themselves, have that crowd nothing better to protest about? Haven’t they got recognition for Irish as a core school subject, haven’t they got their own radio and TV stations funded by the Government, haven’t they got the constitutional right to use Irish in their dealings with the state? We Gaeilgeoirí have to acknowledge that the general public would be quite correct on the first two of these propositions – Irish does still hold a central place in our education system, and Raidió na Gaeltachta and TG4 are both excellent stations which punch far above their weight.
Where the general public’s perception falls down is on the third proposition – that we Irish speakers have the right to use Irish in our dealings with the State. In theory and under the Constitution this may be the case, but in practice it is usually impossible or else extremely difficult to use Irish for official purposes. This has long been the weakness in the State’s overall policy on the Irish language. As Mr Ó Cuirreáin put it, the State imposes a duty on students to learn the language and then frequently puts obstacles in their way of using it for official purposes.
I know a section of the public will still say, so what? But the point is that it does not make sense for any of us if one arm of the State is contradicting what another arm of it is trying to facilitate. If, as a country, we want Irish to survive even as a small minority language, the State will have to take the practical steps necessary to provide for the right of Irish speakers to use the language in the public sphere. As a former civil servant myself, I’m convinced that this is above all a question of political and administrative will and does not have to involve any extra resources.
No language can survive if its use is confined to just private and domestic contexts. A lot of us now feel we can only practice the language with other consenting adults behind closed doors. No wonder people look at us as if we had two heads the odd time we muster the courage to march down the main street of our capital city. – Is mise,
JOHN GLENNON,
Bannagroe,
Hollywood, Co Wicklow.
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Lack of services in Irish dismays Higgins
Márta 6, 2014
President Michael D Higgins has expressed his dismay and concern at the State’s failure to provide services in Irish for Irish speakers.
Mr Higgins made his comments during a reception at Áras an Uachtaráin yesterday afternoon held in honour of former coimisinéir teanga Seán Ó Cuirreáin. Mr Ó Cuirreáin resigned in December over the State’s failure to improve services to the public through Irish. Mr Higgins described the former coimisinéir as a passionate defender of language rights. “I would like to pay tribute this evening to Seán’s honesty, his intellectual integrity and to his steadfastness. Speaking in Irish, Mr Higgins said: “Irish should never be seen as a thorn in the side of the administrative system”. “As President of Ireland, I wish to state that, not only am I dismayed, but that I am greatly concerned at the apparent low level of ability to fulfil the rights of citizens who wish to interact through Irish with the State and its agencies. “We should also tackle the poisonous myth that Irish is an obstacle to the acquisition of any other language. “In my own experience, those who hold that idea would only be happy with a monoglot entirely English-speaking Republic.”
Obstacles
“We need to carefully examine the obstacles that stood in Seán Ó Cuirreáin’s way as he tried to carry out his work; the type of obstacle that led him to believe that he would be better off if he stepped back from the role of an coimisinéir teanga. “Very serious doubts have now emerged as to whether the Irish language can continue as a primary spoken language even among the communities in the heart of the Gaeltacht.” However, Mr Higgins struck a hopeful note on the public’s attitude towards Irish. “A great change in the attitude of people to Irish is discernible in the results of the recent census. Irish no longer carries the stigma of being connected with poverty and emigration; to Irish people it is now an important symbol of identity.”
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Loreto Abbey to open doors to Irish language post-primary
Márta 6, 2014
Gaelcholáiste an Phiarsaigh to start lessons in September after 10-year campaign.
One of Dublin’s most architecturally significant buildings is to resume use as a secondary school after lying idle for almost 15 years. Rathfarnam’s Loreto Abbey, which dates back to the 18th century, is to house Gaelcholáiste an Phiarsaigh, the first all-Irish secondary school to be established in south Dublin since Tallaght’s Coláiste de hÍde was founded in 1993. The former boarding school was recently purchased from Nama by the Department of Education for a reported €2.3 million and will reopen for lessons in September. The huge growth in demand for Irish language schooling has intensified the need for Irish language post-primary schools to accommodate the numerous Gaelscoileanna that have sprung up across Dublin city and county in recent years.
There are currently only seven post-primary schools catering for some 34 all-Irish primary schools in the region, and south Co Dublin is serviced by just three post-primary schools – Coláiste Eoin and Íosagáin in Stillorgan and Coláiste de hÍde in Tallaght. The new post-primary school will be multi-denominational and will cater primarily for pupils from Gaelscoil Thaobh na Coille in Kilternan, Lios na nÓg in Ranelagh, Scoil Mológa in Harold’s Cross and Gaelscoil Chnoc Liamhna in Knocklyon. Some 200 children have already registered with the school and 46 are enrolled to start in September. It is envisaged that this number will increase to between 500 and 600 once the school is fully operational. After campaigning for 10 years for a site to house an Irish language post-primary school in the area, parents were told in January that the Department of Education had identified a permanent location suitable for the school.
Commercial sensitivities surrounding the purchase of the site meant the location was only revealed this week. Speaking this morning, chairman of the school board, Lorcán Mac Gabhann, said he had been informed on Monday that the new school will be housed in the former abbey from September. He said the news brought a sense of relief to parents who had become frustrated at the absence of a premises as the new school year approached. The school will now concentrate on enrolment and determining the number of teachers required. “One major element was missing – the location of the school. Everything else depended on that,” Mr Mac Gabhann said, adding he hoped the attendance will be finalised soon. The school board is holding a meeting for prospective parents in Bewleys Hotel in Leopardstown at 8pm tonight to discuss the latest developments. “We are expecting 100 people at the meeting tonight. People are coming back who had registered for other schools.” An Foras Pátrúnachta, the patron body for the school, welcomed the development. General secretary Caoimhín Ó hEaghra said: “We are delighted that the school has found a permanent site at last.
“There has been a clear demand for a Gaelcholáiste in this area for a long time and this can be seen in the level of demand for places in Coláiste Eoin and Íosagáin. We hope the new school will cater for the need that is there at the moment and that we will see in the future. Mr Ó hEaghra said some renovations would be required to bring the building up to current standards, but that An Foras Pátrúnachta was working on this with the Department of Education. Built in 1725 by William Palliser, the original house was purchased by Archbishop Murray of Dublin in 1821 for the Irish branch of the Institute of the Blessed Mary. Described as early Georgian and classical in style, the main abbey building is where the school will initially be housed. The 1.82 hectare site consists of several buildings including the abbey itself, a concert hall, a church, a gymnasium and two gate lodges. A boarding school was established on the site in 1823 and the property was extended between 1863 and 1903 to include the concert hall and gymnasium. Previously run by the Loreto Sisters, the school closed in 1999 and was purchased by property developer Liam Carroll for £14 million. He planned to convert the property into a nursing home and to build 10 apartment blocks. He failed in his attempt to convert the former convent buildings into offices in 2004 and the site was subsequently taken over by Nama.
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Irish language under threat
Márta 6, 2014
A chara, – Rather than continuing the unedifying spat on your pages between the pro- and anti-Gaeilge lobbies on the merits and demerits of the Irish language, may I suggest we defer to words of wisdom from our much-missed Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney: “Not to learn Irish is to miss the opportunity of understanding what life in this country has meant and could mean in a better future.
It is to cut oneself off from ways of being at home. If we regard self-understanding, mutual understanding, imaginative enhancement, cultural diversity and a tolerant political atmosphere as desirable attainments, we should remember that a knowledge of the Irish language is an essential element in their realisation.” – Is mise,
CONALL Ó MÓRÁIN,
Louvain,
Cluain Sceach,
Baile Átha Claith 14.
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Irish language under threat
Márta 6, 2014
Sir, – EF Fanning’s use of the Census 2011 language question (February 26th) illustrates a statistical anomaly with a self-selective question such as how often people speak Gaelic, which tends to favour romantic sentimentalism over scientific accuracy.
It is highly likely that most of the 119,000 Polish speakers are actually fluent in that language. I sincerely doubt the same could be said of the 1.77 million people who claim to be able to speak Gaelic. But the 1.77 million includes schoolchildren. In fact, only 77,185 people, or 1.7 per cent of the population, claimed to use Gaelic on a daily basis outside of school. It is probable that there are more daily users of Polish than Gaelic. Perhaps the question could be rephrased to ask if you are fluent in Gaelic, or maybe the question should be asked in Gaelic on the English form to see how many people are able to answer it.
Speaking of the English form, for Census 2011 people were offered the choice of the English or Gaelic form. A total of 1,654,447 English forms were collected, whereas only a measly 7,806 Gaelic forms were collected. Or, to put it another way, only 0.47 per cent of census forms were the Gaelic version! Instead of lecturing English speakers, criticising Government for lack of services, or demanding more force-feeding, perhaps Gaelgoirí should start with themselves and actually use the Gaelic form for Census 2016. – Yours, etc,
JASON FITZHARRIS,
Rivervalley,
Swords,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – On Saturday last, in a replica Irish cottage in the centre of Phoenix, Arizona, I was shown a small room where children of age five and upwards learn Irish in much the same setting as they would in an Irish national school. They can then cross a small plaza to the Irish-language section of the recently completed McClelland Irish Library (linked with the main public library across the road), or join the adult Irish classes in the fully equipped learning suites adjoining. Someone should tell them about how Ireland feels about all of this before they waste any more time or resources. – Yours, etc,
DENIS BERGIN,
Schoolhouse Road,
Mount Pleasant,
South Carolina.
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Irish language under threat
Márta 3, 2014
A chara, – Irish has been described as a functionally useless language (Eanna Coffey, February 25th). This may come as a surprise to the 200 Irish speakers of An Ghaeltacht-sur-Seine here in Paris.
The Irish are remarkable among “English speakers” on mainland Europe in their appreciation for and willingness to learn other functionally challenged local languages such as French, German and Spanish. A great many from other English-speaking countries are notorious for keeping to English-speaking circles and expecting the locals to speak English.
Not so the Irish, and particularly those who can speak some Irish. They have great respect for other people’s languages, plus a willingness and ability to learn them. This comes from first having respect for their own language.
This is not only useful, it also creates enormous goodwill towards the Irish and Ireland, and dare I say it, could perhaps be considered functional!
– Is mise,
CIARÁN Mac GUILL,
Cathaoirleach,
An Ghaeltacht-sur-Seine
Conradh na Gaeilge, Paris branch,
Rue Gaston Paymal,
Clichy,
An Fhrainc.
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