IPPN

Published: 16 April 2009

Source: independent.ie

By Ralph Riegel

Thursday April 16 2009

THE Government's savage round of school budget cutbacks has thrown Irish education back to the standards of the 1950s, teachers claimed yesterday.

A Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) study says that families face devastating hikes in education costs for their children of between €1,032 and €1,750 per family.

The study also indicated that a school of 400 students will lose between €17,000 and €20,000 per annum because of the withdrawal of grant aid.

In contrast, the same school will only gain around €4,500 from the Government's proposed increase in the student capitation grant.

The study was conducted by TUI research officer Bernie Judge and suggested that the cutbacks will have a massive impact on families.

Problems range from greater pupil-teacher ratios and reduced school budgets, to restricted education supports and substantially higher costs.

Privileged

"These cuts have thrown education back 50 years to when only the privileged could enjoy fair and easy access and be confident of opportunities to complete second-level education and progression to third level," she said. "The price paid by some young people will be with them for a long time -- in some instances forever," she added.

The TUI said its study underlined the fact that education would be damaged by financial cutbacks. It added that the sector's ability to support job creation was compromised.

"Low education achievement at a young age reduces participation in adult education. It will lead to higher costs for the State as adult education measures try to compensate for what schools were not resourced to deliver -- a strong education to young people."

The TUI official described the cutbacks as "unfair and cowardly" and claimed they targeted the very families least able to afford the additional cost burden.

- Ralph Riegel

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Published: 16 April 2009

Source: independent.ie

A SCHOOL was forced to take back an unruly pupil who caused mayhem for four years and was eventually expelled.

The ASTI convention in Killarney yesterday heard the student started disruption from the middle of first year.

The student was accused of unacceptable intimidation of some teachers and total annoyance of most others. His actions culminated in an attempted assault of a deputy principal which led to his expulsion.

But the school was forced to take him back when the parents took the matter to an appeals board, set up under Section 29 of the Education Act, which ruled in his favour.

Larry McGuinness, of the Fingal branch, told the conference that teachers and students should take precedence over disruptive pupils in class.

He said that Section 29 undermined the education system as schools became the culprits -- not the perpetrators of the disruptive acts.

Cork South delegate John Mulcahy described Section 29 as a "charter for scoundrels".

"The appeals are intrusive and ignore the mission of the school," he added.

Teachers are coming under pressure not to initiate disciplinary procedures against unruly pupils and have been told to play down incidents.

Susie Hall (Dublin North-East) said the vast majority of students were fine, but they were undermined by a small minority who had no respect.

"We have allowed ourselves to be sleepwalked down the path of political correctness so that inexcusable behaviour is 'explained' by children having one or more special needs," she added.

- John Walshe

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Published: 16 April 2009

Source: independent.ie

By John Walshe Education Editor

Thursday April 16 2009

TEACHERS yesterday criticised their union leaders for going too easy on the pension levy.

An emergency motion demanding tougher action over the levy will now go before a private session of the ASTI convention this morning.

Delegates meeting in Killarney blasted a motion that was simply "deploring" the levy, saying the wording of it was too mild.

They forced the union's Standing Committee to meet in special session last evening, to come up with forms of action that will have an impact without hurting pupils.

These will be discussed this morning. Bernard Lynch from the Dublin South 1 branch said the pension levy was despicable and immoral.

"The debate should focus on what we are going to do about it," said Mr Lynch, who also lashed out at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, saying it had betrayed teachers.

He said the only response of ICTU was to urge public servants to lobby TDs, which was the "last refuge".

Sean Fallon from the same branch said some teachers were forced to get a second job because they had a big mortgage to pay. He criticised the "pathetic response" of the union's standing committee. And he added teachers should withdraw from everything they were not contracted for.

Former president John Hurley, from Limerick South, said he had recently retired on a good pension because of work done by the union's head office, union officials and ICTU. He was opposed to the levy but said there had to be balance in the debate. He said he did not have to worry about how shares fared, unlike those in the private sector.

Mark Walshe from the Bray branch said he had little confidence any new motion from the standing committee would have the plan of action necessary. "My preference is for a one-day national stoppage before the holidays," he added.

Another former president, Shelia Parsons, said the levy was the worst thing that had happened to teachers.

"We have been left leaderless and headless," she said, adding that ICTU was an absolute disgrace. She said its silence on the pensions issue was deafening. "How long do we remain silent and downtrodden?" she asked delegates.

- John Walshe Education Editor

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Published: 16 April 2009

Source: independent.ie

'I hope I live to see the day when people will laud the tough decisions we took at this time'

THE troops of teachers gathered in Gotham-by-the-Lee were in uproar. Some jokers in government have begun to pick their pockets, and they weren't at all happy.

And so earlier this week the Bat Signal was seen shining in the night sky over the Rochestown Park Hotel on the outskirts of Cork city.

The maddened members of the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) were in dire need of a superhero. And yesterday afternoon right on cue (or in fact about half-an-hour late), up roared Battman, cape at the ready. Alas, the Minister for Education and Science was the last person the teachers had in mind. As far as large swathes of the country's educators are concerned, Batt O'Keeffe is the Baddie.

On Tuesday he was lashed in Letterkenny by the INTO, then castigated in Killarney by the ASTI. And now Batt's penitential pilgrimage had brought him onto his own home turf, a few miles from his home in Ballincollig, and onto his old stomping-ground, the teachers' union of which he was once a member.

Arriving at the hotel to address the last of the three teachers' conferences, the minister tried to put a brave face on it. "I expect that I'll get, I suppose, a very mild welcome to say the least," he said with a tiny flash of optimism.

Alas for Battered Batt, whatever the INTO and ASTI could do, the TUI were determined to do better and louder.

The delegates had whiled away the hour before his arrival by snacking on large chunks of raw meat and passing emergency motions on the hated pensions levy and the freeze on appointments and promotions.

The mood was angry, the muinteoiri were on the march.

If Batt expected a bit of a break on his home patch, he was swiftly disabused of this notion as soon as he entered the packed hall. There was a tense silence as he walked towards the podium, and then the first heckles rose from the back.

"Shame on the minister!" roared one, as other teachers held up placards -- 'Stop Vandalising Education', 'Short Term Cuts, Long Term Damage'. And as Batt began to speak, a dozen or so teachers walked out in protest.

The hostile atmosphere seemed to fluster Batt who delivered his speech hesitantly -- after all, he had no juicy apples for the teachers.

"In making the adjustments in spending and taxation, we have done our utmost to be as fair and as balanced as possible," he explained, but this was met with a chorus of jeers.

This 400-plus mob of mutinous muinteoiri would not be appeased. At times, Batt could barely be heard over periodic heckles of "Resign!"

Nor did the minister's plea -- "I understand how difficult it is for you" -- cut any ice, as more jeering broke out among the angry delegates.

If Batt's reception at the previous two conferences had been frosty, then this was torrid.

And this was before the guns of the TUI's president, Don Ryan had peppered him with fiery words. In contrast to Batt, the union president was greeted like he was a combination of Barack Obama and the four members of Take That. His address was punctuated by five standing ovations, over 40 bursts of applause and numerous outbreaks of cheering.

And Don got stuck right in, getting his audience up on their feet almost straightaway with his accusation.

"I listened very carefully to your explanation for your actions," he lectured Batt. "But it is clearly of 'the dog ate my homework' variety," he added as the teachers roared and cheered like a bunch of rowdy schoolkids.

And they hollered again when their pugilistic president accused the Government of opting for cutbacks that were "hostile, dreadful, unfair and hypocritical", and again when he thundered how "the opportunities of the most educationally and socially marginalised of the nations' children were sacrificed to bail out the corrupt financial institutions of the country".

Batt looked a little shaken in the face of the onslaught, but he gamely took his punishment on the chin, and lingered afterwards to calmly put his case to a group of irate teachers who collared him beside the podium for an extra-curricular moaning session.

Before he left for the bucolic bliss of Ballincollig, Batt was philosophical about the hostile reception he had received.

"I suspected it was going to be the warmest and yet the coolest that I was going to receive, because it's the final conference and this one took notice of what happened in the other two," he reckoned.

But despite the fireworks, Batt was not for turning.

"We're certainly not in a contest of popularity. We have to take the most severe and stringent measures that are going to hurt people in their pockets; measures that are not going to make us popular with the people in the short term," he said.

"I hope I live to see the day when people will laud the tough decisions we took at this time".

However, he diplomatically tiptoed around the touchy subject of possible strike action from the teachers' unions.

"Does disruption of the schools on a daily basis make a difference to what we want to achieve in the long run?" he asked. "I'm asking that we would all be sensible".

Thus Battman, aka Captain Sensible, survived his first tour of duty in the conference warzone.

- LISE HAND

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