IPPN

Published: 13 May 2009

SEÁN FLYNN Education Editor

THE REPUBLIC is near bottom of the latest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) league table on the provision of early childhood education.

A new report shows that participation rates for three-year-olds in early childhood education in the State are among the lowest in the countries studied.

Slightly more than 2 per cent of Irish three-year-olds are in State- subsidised pre-primary school education. This compares with 100 per cent of children in Italy and France. In most countries there is a right to early childhood education from age three.

The report also underlines the high cost of childcare in the State. On average, childcare absorbs up to 51 per cent of the disposable income available to a dual-income family, compared with an average of about 30 per cent across the 12 OECD states in the report.

The Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) said the report showed Government thought "early childhood education is nothing to do with the State". General secretary of the INTO John Carr said Government policy to date has been to provide cash subsidies to parents to provide pre-school education. "The recent Budget slashed that funding leaving Irish parents with the worst of all possible worlds.

"There is substantially less financial support for parents and no State infrastructure for early childhood education," he said.

The report shows that female participation in the workplace is closely linked to the availability of early childhood education.

It also also shows that early childhood education is needed to address issues of child poverty and educational disadvantage. Irish child poverty rates are among the highest in rich countries.

According to the report, early childhood services are particularly important for children with diverse learning rights, whether from physical, mental or sensory disabilities or from disadvantage.

In the Republic, the report states there is "no national plan to provide from birth, public interventions in favour of children with disabilities". It shows how children are included in infant classes but with insufficient support to provide appropriate access.

Mr Carr described Government proposals to replace the childcare subsidy with State provision as "a con job". There is no infrastructure and a shortage of trained personnel, he said.

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Published: 12 May 2009

A forum, jointly chaired by the Department of Education and Science and the Department of Finance and comprising the relevant Management Bodies and the Unions involved, has recently been set up to examine the terms and conditions of employment of school secretaries and caretakers. In order to establish the current position a survey is now being conducted throughout primary and post primary schools.

IPPN has for many years, expressed its concern about the level and quality of secretarial and caretaker support that is currently available to Principals. For this reason, IPPN welcomes the survey and looks forward to the information it will provide. IPPN has carried out some research in this area and will shortly meet with DES officials to share the results of a number of its surveys.

As the Board of Management is the employer of caretakers and secretaries, IPPN recommends that it is appropriate that this survey would be completed by the Chairperson of the Board of Management.

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Published: 12 May 2009

Source: Irish Times

BRIAN MOONEY'S ADVICE CENTRE: THE COMBINATION of the Government's budgetary decisions and the expected introduction of the taxation of lump sum payments has led to a huge increase in the number of teachers seeking retirement. To be eligible, teachers aged 55 and over must have completed 33 years' service.

That there is a rush to get out of teaching is not surprising. When schools re-open in September they will be very different places. If a school is currently over the quota for teacher:pupils ratios, the teachers retiring this month will not be replaced. The teaching unions say more than 1,000 jobs could go at both primary and second level. This will put huge pressures on principals as they attempt to maintain the range of subjects on offer in their school. As many of these principals are eligible to retire themselves, they may not find the prospect of crisis management very attractive. We may therefore also find boards of management scrambling to appoint many new principals during the summer.

The embargo on appointments to promotional posts will also generate huge problems. Assistant principal posts and duties cannot be advertised or filled. In most schools, assistant principals carry out the middle-management functions of year heads, are programme co-ordinators for Transition Year, Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme, Leaving Certificate Applied, sports co-ordinators and so on. If appointments to any or a number of these duties cannot take place, when schools reopen in September, the day-to-day running of schools may become impossible.

The schools that will be hit hardest by these retirements will be those in the fee-paying sector. These schools suffered the largest cut in their resources in the December budget announcement. They are now being caught in a pincer movement. Parents of many students are suffering financial hardship and may be under pressure to pay fees. Meanwhile, these schools may lose the additional teachers and a range extras which made them so attractive to parents in the first place.

But every cloud has a silver lining. The departure of large numbers of teachers should create employment opportunities for young teachers who are currently holding down part-time teaching posts. It will also create unanticipated opportunities for this year's graduates from teacher-training colleges and the Higher Diploma in Education programmes.

From the Minister for Finance's perspective, this large outflow of teachers will be both a curse and a blessing. He will see a major reduction in salary costs as over-the-quota posts are eliminated from the system, and promotional posts worth more than €8000 are not replaced. The negative side of the equation is that he will now face the prospect of borrowing tens of millions of euro, to pay out lump sum amounts of over €100,000 to every teacher who chooses to retire .

TALK BACK ...

It is clear that wage costs throughout the economy in both the public and private sectors ; particularly at management levels ; are way out of line with our EU colleagues.

Some months ago, I suggested a ceiling of €100,000 on the salary of any public servant, be they Government Minister or hospital consultant, with pro-rata reductions further down the scale. By pretending not to cut pay through the use of so-called pension and other levies, the Government is making it enormously attractive for public servants who at the peak of their productivity in their mid-50s to retire at huge cost to the public purse.

If they had the courage to announce an immediate cut in their own salary scales to the €100,000 ceiling, instead of setting up a benchmarking review, they could then have initiated a cut in salaries at the higher pay levels within the public sector.

The effect of such a bold and courageous step would have been to remove the huge financial incentive to the over-55s to retire. The Government would not then have had to suspend appointments to vital promotional posts throughout the public service, including those in schools.

There would have been a real sense of grievance among those over 55 that the retirement package they had anticipated was now going to be dramatically cut. But, in the light of the decimation of many private sector pension funds, such grievance would be very short-lived.

Unfortunately, this Government is showing a complete lack of the political nerve to take the decisions necessary to rectify our present precarious economic situation. In failing to do so, it is setting our schools up for a chaotic year ahead.

Brian Mooney is a guidance counsellor at Oatlands College, Dublin

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Published: 11 May 2009

Source: Irish Times

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

RECENT BUDGET cuts meant Protestant education in the Republic had "been put back by 40 years", the Church of Ireland General Synod has been told. Adrian Oughton told delegates that among the detrimental effects of the cuts for his school, Wilson's Hospital, Multyfarnham, Co Westmeath, would be "one less teacher than the Catholic school beside us, which also has 400 pupils".

He continued "our pupils need grants to attend our schools". Such schools were "inclusive", he said, and boarding at them was not "an indication of elitism" but "an absolute necessity for our [widely dispersed] pupils".

Concluding, he said, "we must not allow our educational system to be downvalued in this way".

The Dean of Ossory, Very Rev Norman Lynas, described the decision to impose the cuts as "a unilateral act" which was "morally wrong", and which was also "a disproportionate hit". He queried whether it might be open to legal challenge. "The message has to go out that it is totally unacceptable." David Wynne, of the Church's Secondary Education Committee, which allocates the State grant to Protestant schools, said the numbers of parents seeking grant assistance had "increased significantly" over figures for this time last year. He also pointed out that in 2008 as many as 38 per cent of applicants were in need of the maximum grant.

The Church of Ireland primate, Archbishop Alan Harper, remarked on the "irony that in both jurisdictions education should be in such extraordinary turmoil".

The Bishop of Derry, Right Rev Ken Good, accused the Northern Ireland educational authorities of reneging on agreements reached in the mid-decades of the last century with the Protestant churches when they transferred ownership of their schools to the State.

"It is important that we hold onto our rights in education as a church," he said.

Yesterday delegates passed a Bill which amended the Book of Common Prayer to include a Declaration preceding its Articles of Religion.

Among the Declaration's paragraphs is one which says that "historic documents often stem from periods of deep separation between Christian Churches. Whilst, in spite of a real degree of convergence, distinct differences remain, the tone and tenor of the language of the negative statements towards other Christians should not be seen as representing the spirit of this Church today."

It expresses regret "that words written in another age and in a different context should be used in a manner hurtful to or antagonistic towards other Christians".

The Synod also passed a motion calling for exploration of a common theology of baptism. It was proposed by the Bishop of Meath and Kildare Most Rev Richard Clarke and seconded by Canon Patrick Comerford.

It said "the time is right for the different Christian traditions in Ireland to explore afresh a common theology of baptism and to share insights concerning their baptismal discipline and practice" and instructed the Church's Commission for Christian Unity and Dialogue to make this a priority.

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