Surprise at strength of middle-class resistance to comprehensive schools [IrishTimes.com]
- Published: 02 January 2010
EDUCATION: FROM THE time he arrived as Northern Ireland’s education minister in 1976, Lord (Peter) Melchett, an Old Etonian, had as his principal objective the introduction of comprehensive education. It soon became clear, after he had issued a consultative document, that this would be much more difficult to achieve than elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
Arthur Brooke, his permanent secretary, reported in March 1977, that “on the face of it, there is not much support for wholesale reorganisation”.
He added: “One of the purposes of the consultative document was to gain more support for reorganisation by showing how it would work out in practice. This has not happened.
Full Story: http://www.irishtimes.com
Retired teachers get subbing work despite crisis [Examiner.ie]
- Published: 02 January 2010
SCHOOLS are still giving substitution work to hundreds of retired teachers despite an unemployment crisis for thousands of teachers who can’t get work.
Figures from the Department of Education show almost one-tenth of subbing hours are provided to retired staff despite Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe’s plea with school boards to give work to recent graduates trying to gain experience.
The payroll data for September and October shows 861 retired teachers were used by the country’s 3,300 primary schools. At almost 500 second level schools for which figures were available, 193 retired teachers were employed in the same period and worked 6,321 hours or an average 32.75 hours each.
Full Story: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/education/retired-teachers-get-subbing-work-despite-crisis-108838.html
Single agency may deal with grants [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 01 January 2010
THE Government is considering a single agency to handle student grants and possibly other means-tested payments.
The legislation planned to hand responsibility for all 60,000 third-level grants to Vocational Education Committees (VECs) has been stuck at Dáil committee stage since January 2009.
Full Story: www.irishexaminer.com
A scholar, bishop and champion of peace [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 01 January 2010
CARDINAL Cahal B Daly was born in Loughguile, in the Glens of Antrim, on October 1 1917. He was educated at St Patrick’s National School in Loughguile, and then as a boarder in St Malachy’s College, Belfast, in 1930.
The third of seven children, his father, from Roscommon, was a primary school teacher.
Full Story: www.irishexaminer.com
Hundreds of thousands of qualified teachers 'not working in profession' [guardian.co.uk]
- Published: 01 January 2010
Hundreds of thousands of qualified teachers are not working in the profession, according to government figures. And at least 25,000 of those who have qualified since 2000 left full-time teaching in state schools without even entering the classroom, the Conservatives have revealed.
Full Story: www.guardian.co.uk
