Website to promote Irish launched [IrishTimes]
- Published: 01 February 2010
An interactive website to improve teaching and learning of spoken Irish in post-primary schools was launched today.
Abair Leat! is a virtual online language laboratory in which students can improve their Irish by interacting over the internet with native Irish speakers.
Students can use the website to listen to native Irish speakers, record their own material in Irish and undertake self-correcting exercises.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
School building plan to create 7,300 construction jobs - Minister O’Keeffe [fiannafail.ie]
- Published: 01 February 2010
The Government’s €794 million capital programme for schools and colleges this year will create 7,300 jobs in the construction industry, according to the Minister for Education and Science, Batt O’Keeffe TD.
The figure is based on industry analysts’ conservative estimate that 9.3 is the average number of direct jobs created annually by €1 million of investment.
Minister O’Keeffe said: ‘The investment will stimulate the construction sector and support thousands of jobs, as well as providing state-of-the-art accommodation in schools and colleges across the country.
Full Story: www.fiannafail.ie
Church's role in primary schools [IrishTimes]
- Published: 01 February 2010
Madam, – Fr Seán McDonagh and Andrew Carvill write separately (January 28th) decrying your supposed campaign to remove the Catholic Church’s influence from our primary school system. In both cases they reference the countless hours volunteered by members of boards of management throughout the country as a reason to maintain the status quo.
Nobody I know of denies that the vast majority of these volunteers have had a positive influence on our education system. But the fact remains that they bring this positive influence under the aegis of an organisation that has actively facilitated the molestation of generations of children.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
Number of new schools built is halved [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 01 February 2010
JUST 20 new schools were built last year – less than half of the number constructed in 2008, new figures from the Department of Education show.
Figures supplied to Fine Gael Education Spokesman Brian Hayes in a parliamentary question show that in 2008 a total of 48 new schools were completed, providing 486 permanent mainstream classrooms.
Full Story: www.irishexaminer.com
'Virtual lab' helps Irish language students [belfasttelegraph.co.uk]
- Published: 01 February 2010
A new website linking Irish language students with native speakers has been launched.
The online classroom allows teenagers to interact directly with Gaeilgeoiri, record their own material or try their hand at correcting their own work.
Full Story: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk
