Coalition to install 300 people on State boards before election [IrishTimes]
- Published: 16 December 2010
THE GOVERNMENT is to make almost 300 appointments to State boards before it leaves office early next year. The Green Party last month demanded an election in January but March has emerged as a more likely date since then for the election.
Information provided to Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar following parliamentary questions, outlined that 35 appointments and reappointments have been made since the Green Party announcement in November. Twenty of these were made by Green Party leader and Minister for the Environment John Gormley.
Of a total of 291 appointments due to be made before the end of February, 96 will be made by Minister for Health Mary Harney and 33 by Minister for Enterprise Batt O’Keeffe. Minister for Education and Skills Mary Coughlan, who will appoint 31, recently appointed Gerry Horkan, a Fianna Fáil councillor in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, to the Dental Council. Mr Horkan said the post was not remunerated. Some of the appointees will be paid, others will not. Subsistence and travel expenses also apply to some posts.
Between November 22nd and Tuesday of this week, Mr Gormley made two new appointments to the Dublin Docklands Development Authority; four to the board of the National Building Agency, and reappointed four others. He made four appointments to the new Housing and Sustainable Communities Limited board, two new appointments to the Private Residential Tenancies Board and four reappointments to the Heritage Council.
Mr Varadkar called for a moratorium on appointments to State boards until after the election. He said the posts include “some very lucrative ones and some very powerful ones”. I’m not saying any of these people they have appointed are bad . . . there should be Oireachtas scrutiny.”
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
Army urged to wage war on obesity in youngsters [Independent.ie]
- Published: 16 December 2010
OUR schoolchildren are so unfit and overweight that a new Oireachtas report has called for the Army to be drafted into our classrooms.
The radical suggestion is made in a new study urging members of the Defence Forces to help our unhealthy students get into shape.
Most of them fail to meet the recommended minimum for physical education (PE) in schools, while obesity rates are growing very rapidly.
Up to 60 minutes' moderate to vigorous activity a day is recommended. But, according to the report, these basic targets are not being met by most.
It also points to a separate major study which found that the vast majority of Irish pupils spend more than the maximum recommended on 'screen time' -- that is, in front of their TVs, DVDs and computers.
To combat this, the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Women's Rights has said that soldiers and other military personnel could be used to support the delivery of sport and PE programmes in schools.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Union doubts benefits of teacher work placement scheme [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 16 December 2010
AN unpaid work placement scheme to help unemployed teachers get classroom experience may not be as beneficial as promised, a union claims.
The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) earlier this year called for assistance in getting recent graduates the classroom experience needed to undergo the probation by department inspectors which they must complete before being eligible for full-time jobs.
But the union said an initiative unveiled by Education Minister Mary Coughlan would pose problems for many schools with no extra space to accommodate classes for a new teacher at short notice and difficulties would arise if work placement teachers left during the school year.
The scheme operated through Fás involves placements of between two and nine months but it cannot be used to displace an existing staff member or fill a vacant post.
Ms Coughlan announced this week that the free work placement programme is being expanded to create an extra 5,000 places across the wider public service and 500 more graduate placements in the private sector, all above an existing 2,000 places.
Full Story: www.irishexaminer.com
Concern raised over ICT spending cuts for school kids in Ireland [schooldays.ie]
- Published: 16 December 2010
Concern has been expressed over the Irish government's decision to reduce the amount of money spent on ICT in primary and secondary schools.
The Department of Education's Estimates for Education and Skills Vote revealed that the budget for computer equipment in schools will be 1.5 million euros in 2011.
This is a drop from 63 million euros allocated to this area in 2010, 20 million of which was spent on the Smart Schools = Smart Economy strategy.
However, Graham Byrne, head of Promethean's Ireland and Scotland divisions, told Silicon Republic that this is a time when investment should be made into information technology.
He stated: "By cutting back on ICT spending now, we are effectively removing the tools these kids need to get us out of this economic situation."
Full Story: www.schooldays.ie
Major study in Galway schools to establish how many children have autism [advertiser.ie]
- Published: 16 December 2010
A major national survey is taking place in local primary schools to establish the number of children who have autism.
Some 3,000 children aged six to 11 years have so far been screened as part of the Irish autism prevalence study entitled “Autism Counts”.
Work on the project began here in October and will be completed by February. It is being conducted by Dublin City University’s School of Nursing and is funded by Irish Autism Action.
Galway is one of three regions in the country involved in the project, the others are Waterford and Cork.
Parents of children in the target age groups attending primary and special education schools are being asked to fill in questionnaires as part of the project. Children who score above a certain cut-off point will be invited for further screening.
“As this is a prevalence study high response rates are extremely important,” explains Andrew Boilson, a research associate with Dublin City University’s School of Nursing who is carrying out the fieldwork in Galway. “We invited all national and special education schools to take part and are asking parents to contact us if they have any questions.”
Galway was chosen because the organisers wanted to select regions which were representative in terms of socio-economic status, he says. These areas also needed to have well developed social medical services.
Full Story: www.advertiser.ie
