Slipping further down the ladder [IrishTimes]
- Published: 14 December 2010
PROFILE: SCHOOL SECRETARIES AND CARETAKERS: School secretaries and caretakers are among the most poorly paid across the education sector, with many earning less than €15,000 per year. They face a 5 per cent pay cut next month
AS IF to make sure that the lowest paid in education don’t escape the race to the bottom on salaries, the Department of Education has ordered pay cuts for ancillary staff in schools. These include secretaries, caretakers and cleaners. For the lowest-paid workers – nearly all earning less than €30,000 per year with most on less than half of that – the new move will mean a 5 per cent cut in earnings. The reductions will apply to all allowances, including overtime. The cut will be imposed except where it reduces pay rates below the minimum wage, which itself is being cut to €7.65 per hour.
Nearly all school staff apart from teachers are direct employees of the board of management. They are paid by the board from grants linked to pupil enrolment given to the school by the Department every year.
The level of the grant gives an indication of how these workers are paid. The Department pays €155 per child to each school to allow them to employ a secretary or caretaker. Simple maths shows that a 100-pupil school (almost half of the primary schools in the country fit this category) can pay a secretary and caretaker €7,250 each per year. Not all of this goes to the workers, as employer contributions to PRSI, for example, have to be found from it. This is the type of annual wage which proves that many are genuinely better off on the dole.
This scheme is in complete contrast to one that existed before 1990 in very large schools where caretakers and secretaries were paid by the State. Then they had proper holiday entitlements, an incremental wage scale and a pension scheme. But in a previous public service jobs embargo, the State simply stopped hiring these workers. Later, a grant scheme to allow school boards to hire caretakers and secretaries directly was introduced.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
Change Croke Park deal, urge students [Independent.ie]
- Published: 14 December 2010
THIRD-level students have called for a renegotiation of the Croke Park deal so that the pay and pensions of public servants can be cut.
The Union of Students Ireland (USI) says public service salaries must be moved "more into line with the new economic realities".
It comes on the heel of a new opinion poll showing 65pc support among the public for a renegotiation of the Croke Park pay and productivity deal.
The poll, carried out for USI by Red C, also found that among students, there was 75pc support for a revision.
USI president Gary Redmond said that with more than 75pc of the €8.59bn education budget absorbed by pay and pensions, it left €2.14bn for the non-pay element.
While the Budget saw cuts in services to students, more than 60 staff in the education sector had salaries in excess of €150,000 and about 500 were on the professorial salary scale, €113,573- €145,952, said the USI president.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Schools in firing line over their enrolment policies [Independent.ie]
- Published: 14 December 2010
SCHOOLS that give priority to sons or daughters of teachers when enrolling pupils could be the next to find themselves running foul of the law.
School admissions policies have been thrown into the spotlight following an Equality Tribunal ruling that a secondary school discriminated against a Traveller boy.
John Stokes was excluded from the Christian Brothers High School, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, because his father was not a past pupil -- one of the criteria used by the school for prioritising applications.
An expert said last night that discrimination in school admissions policies was widespread and had been a "timebomb waiting to go off".
Gearoid O Bradaigh, a barrister and former chief executive officer of Co Westmeath VEC, said the only way to solve the problem was for schools to conduct a lottery for places.
"That is the only way to be fair to all," said Mr O Bradaigh. He said there was an obligation on the Department Education to draw up regulations on what ought to be in admissions policies.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Parents of truant children face rise in prosecutions [IrishTimes]
- Published: 13 December 2010
THERE HAS been an increase again this year in the number of prosecutions made against parents who fail to ensure their children attend school.
By the end of November, 91 summonses for non-attendance had been issued by the National Educational Welfare Board – 10 more than in all of last year.
The prosecutions refer to 61 children. The board said prosecution was a last resort in cases where no progress was made with the family.
The legal process begins with a school attendance notice, issued to the parents. So far in 2010, 379 of these notices have been issued in respect of 248 children.
To date, the board has issued 1,538 of these notices and of the 312 that proceeded to prosecution, 70 have resulted in conviction and 130 are still before the courts. The remainder were struck out, dismissed or withdrawn.
Michael Doyle, National Educational Welfare Board regional manager for north Leinster, said the increase in prosecutions had more to do with the board’s efficiency and effectiveness in dealing with cases than a rise in truancy.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
Don't blame immigrants for decline in education standards [IrishTimes]
- Published: 13 December 2010
OPINION: It is time to move our debates about education to a more fruitful ground
IRISH SOCIETY needs all the youthful intelligence and imagination it can get. So it is not surprising that new figures showing Ireland’s decline in international rankings from fifth to 17th in reading and from 16th to 26th in maths have raised serious concerns.
Our drop in the rankings is the consequence of our own declining standards rather than a surge in other countries’ skills. The average score in reading for Irish 15-year-olds dropped 31 points since 2000, the largest fall in the OECD by some distance. Average scores in maths fell by 16 points. The decline has been across the board.
Many have already reached for the easy explanation of our decline – the arrival of large numbers of new immigrants to Ireland. However, even if we look only at native-born children, Ireland still ranks 17th in reading, the area where most information is available. This decline cannot be pinned on immigrants.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
