Teacher unions react vehemently to pension legislation changes [businessandleadership.com]
- Published: 30 September 2011
Proposed pension legislation reform, destined to slash the public sector pension bill by 35pc, saving the pension bill by €1.8bn annually, is being strongly contested by the main teacher unions, the INTO and the ASTI, with the latter having described the proposals as “larcenous”.
Speaking on RTÉ News last night The Minister for Public Expenditure and Public Reform, Brendan Howlin said that teachers and Gardaí would be least affected by the reforms.
He said that if anyone believes that teachers contribute more than they get out of their pension schemes that he would speak with them.
He also invited INTO's general secretary Sheila Noonan for talks. Noonan is looking forward to presenting the INTO's case to Howlin, as she indicated on Morning Ireland this morning.
Full Story: www.businessandleadership.com
Irish start-up launches child protection platform for mobile phones [siliconrepublic.com]
- Published: 30 September 2011
Irish technology firm mm Technologies has launched a mobile phone protection application system called ‘MobileMinder’.
The MobileMinder breakthrough technology allows parents to see who their children are connected to, know where they are at all times, receive alerts when they arrive somewhere safely, be alerted to signs of cyber bullying, prevent sexting and view internet sites visited by their children. It also has the unique feature called 'I'm Lost' which, when activated, sends a map and location of the child to parents or an older brother/sister.
"MobileMinder offers parents great peace of mind when it comes to the safety of their children and their use of mobile phones. In my day, bullying was only done face to face but now, with most children carrying mobiles, a bully can harass their victim whenever they choose and we want to put a stop to this," stated Don Corbett, co-founder and CEO of mm Technologies, who is also an alum of DCU Business School.
Full Story: www.siliconrepublic.com
Call for reverse to cuts in Special Needs Assistants [fingal-independent.ie]
- Published: 30 September 2011
LOCAL councillors have called on the controversial cuts in Special Needs Assistants (SNA) in our schools to be reversed saying that Fingal has a particular case for maintaining a high number of SNAs.
Cllr Matthew Waine (SP) who raised the issue at a meeting of the full council said it was ironic that when Queen Elizabeth II visited that three children representing the travelling community, immigrants and children with special needs were chosen to ring ' The Peace Bell' at Aras an Uachtarain.
He said the irony was that it was these three groups who went on to be 'attacked' by what he called 'savage cuts' in the SNA service. Cllr Waine gave one example of a child whose mother had died and was left in school without a word in English and no access to a language support teacher in his school. He said the Minister for Education did not understand the terrible impact of the cuts and should take tim out to talk to parents and students affected by them and then reverse the cut-backs. Cllr David McGuinness (FF) who is a teacher himself, said that the SNA initiative should be ' guarded as much as possible against cuts'.
Full Story: www.fingal-independent.ie
Can you spot the real Britney Spears? Kids to be given lessons on air-brushing in radical plan [Independent.ie]
- Published: 30 September 2011
CHILDREN aged 10 and 11 will be warned that almost all photos shown in adverts have been manipulated and that many show "a degree of perfection which is unattainable in society".
They will be told that reading magazines lowers their self-esteem, putting their physical and mental health at risk, and asked to consider if “you need to be beautiful in order to be a good or loveable person”.
The radical move, backed by the British government for all pupils in schools there, comes after a Government-commissioned review called for action to keep sexualised material away from children, which could see explicit music videos given 18-rated labels and the covers of lads’ mags hidden in newsagents.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Quinn 'powerless' to get teacher details [Independent.ie]
- Published: 30 September 2011
EDUCATION Minister Ruairi Quinn is powerless to compel schools to reveal the number of unqualified maths teachers in Irish classrooms.
He has twice ordered the Teaching Council to survey all second-level schools to find out how many unqualified teachers there are in order to tackle the growing maths crisis.
However, as the final results of the survey were published yesterday, some 40pc of schools had still not co-operated.
A spokesperson for his department said Mr Quinn would not be seeking any further responses to the survey.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
