IPPN

Moratorium on Recruitment and Promotion [INTO]

Published: 30 March 2009

Source: INTO

The government has announced a moratorium on recruitment and promotion across the public service. In the case of education, this means that the number of teachers and SNAs will be capped at the September 2009 figures. Vacancies arising thereafter can be filled but only subject to the overall number of teachers or SNAs.

Promoted posts of principal and deputy principal will continue to be filled in the normal way. However, vacancies for posts of assistant principal and special duties teachers will not be filled with immediate effect. The only exception to this embargo will be newly established schools.

The CEC of the INTO is meeting today to consider a range of issues in relation to the reconvened talks on a programme for national recovery and will also be considering this latest development.

Deferral of strike action in primary schools [INTO]

Published: 30 March 2009

Source: INTO

INTO defers industrial action: schools open next Monday

The Central Executive Committee of the INTO met today and decided to defer the strike action planned for 30 March in primary schools.

Speaking after the INTO meeting John Carr, general Secretary of the INTO, said the key objective of calling the work stoppage for 30 March was to get the government to re-engage with the trade unions on a framework to manage the economic crisis on a social partnership basis. He said the INTO had sought a mandate for industrial action as leverage to secure a re-engagement with Government. "This has been achieved," said Carr.

"Therefore the action planned for 30 March is deferred and primary schools will be open as usual," said Carr.

He said the past weeks had been worrying ones for teachers. "Taking strike action is not a position teachers want to be in, particularly in the light of the challenges facing the country." "But," he said, "difficult decisions had to be made and the resolve and strength of teachers has secured the union's first objective ; engagement with government."

He added that securing a negotiating forum was only the first step and said the coming days would determine whether a meaningful and productive engagement would be achieved.

"The INTO believes that there is a better and fairer way to manage the economic downturn," said Carr. "We now have a short window of opportunity to convince the other partners to move forward on the more equitable basis of a social solidarity pact."

He said the Executive of the union was grateful to its members for their support and solidarity. The union's call for industrial action was backed by 79% of primary teachers who voted earlier this month.

State must get ownership of primary schools, says Quinn [Irish Times]

Published: 28 March 2009

Source: Irish Times

MICHAEL O'REGAN, Parliamentary Correspondent, in Mullingar

EDUCATION DEBATE: THE OWNERSHIP of primary schools should be transferred to the Government, Labour education spokesman Ruairi Quinn told delegates last night.

He said that no existing primary school should be closed or sold without the agreement of the Minister for Education.

For historical reasons, he noted, the Church of Ireland and the Catholic Church owned more than 95 per cent of our 3,200 primary schools.

"The Government must take steps, through negotiation, to arrange for the orderly transfer of ownership to the State so as to protect this important infrastructure.

"The existence of the school would be guaranteed, and the rights of the existing patron would remain and be respected, so as to ensure the continued operation of the school." Mr Quinn said that ownership of the schools would bring with it responsibility for maintenance and proper upkeep by the State.

Willie Penrose, spokesman on enterprise, trade and employment, said the current recession was worse than the one which confronted the State in the 1980s.

"Some commentators have suggested that the current crisis is not as bad as what we had to cope with in the 1980s.

"They are wrong, because in the 1980s we had a halt to the modest economic growth of the late 1970s and most people had not experienced prosperity." It was also possible, he added, for the unemployed to emigrate, as the UK and the USA were growing rapidly.

"At one stage it was accepted, not by us in the Labour Party, that we could not all live on a small island. We may soon see how well we can all live on this island if unemployment continues to rise and the unemployed see no prospect of finding work at home or abroad." Mr Penrose accused the banks of hoarding capital so as to deal with the crisis caused by irresponsible lending.

"We should not forget that about 250,000 small businesses across this State provide up to 750,000 jobs, which are often the backbone of the infrastructural fabric of many of our rural villages and towns. Many small businesses, who are members of the Small Firms Association, or of Isme, have had varied experiences dealing with the banks and many are now on the brink of failure."

Róisín Shortall, spokeswoman on social and family affairs, said the mortgage interest supplement was the only form of welfare support for people struggling with their monthly mortgage payment.

"Most of the rules for this scheme were set down before the housing boom. They reflect a time when mortgages were much lower and were paid back with one wage, not two.

"So if one of a couple works 30 or more hours a week, they do not qualify, regardless of how high their mortgage is or how low their income may be." Ms Shortall said that the 30-hour rule should be scrapped and the means test for the supplement revised to ensure that it did not act as a disincentive to work.

She said that the banks, "who have just received €7 billion in welfare payments themselves", should postpone interest payments for struggling mortgage-holders for two years.

Short-sighted schools cuts will hurt most vulnerable [Irish Times]

Published: 28 March 2009

Source: Irish Times

The consequences of the cutbacks could last for generations, writes BREDA O'BRIEN

AS THE so-called mini-budget approaches, there have been perfunctory noises from some teacher unions about reversing some of the cuts in educational services. However, the reality is that parents and teachers are scared stiff that even more extraordinary measures are ahead.

Thus far, we have seen schoolbook grant cuts, a cap on English language support, cuts to the Junior Certificate Schools Programme, Leaving Cert Applied and Leaving Cert Vocational Programme, and the reduction in the capitation grant for Travellers. Special Education classes are being reabsorbed into the mainstream at the same time as class sizes are set to rise. Teaching vacancies will not be filled in many schools, and subject choices are going to be reduced.

The sad thing about most of the cuts is that they will most affect children who are already vulnerable and at risk. The Junior Certificate Schools Programme and Leaving Cert Applied are essential interventions for children who are the least likely to complete their education. Immigrant children need language support if they and their families are to have any chance of integrating into Irish society.

Children with special needs already have the odds stacked against them. Now it appears that there will also be a review of special needs assistants. It would be wonderful to think that review will be conducted purely on educational grounds, but even to hope that is beginning to look terminally naive.

Education helps to determine a person's life prospects in very fundamental ways. According to Prof John FitzGerald of the Economic and Social Research Institute, it even affects marriage prospects, as men who only have primary education are the least likely to be married. It also has profound intergenerational effects.

The home environment is a prime predictor of educational success. Parental education, particularly the mother's, is a vital factor in a child's early development. The more education a mother has, the more likely she is to provide an enriched environment, which stacks the odds in favour of doing well later on. Where a child is not in such a stimulating environment, early intervention is vital.

As Nobel Laureate, Prof James Heckmann of the UCD Geary Institute, said, "It is a rare public policy initiative that promotes fairness and social justice, and at the same time promotes productivity in the economy and in society at large. Early interventions for disadvantaged children promote schooling, raise the quality of the workforce, enhance the productivity of schools, and reduce crime, teenage pregnancy and welfare dependency. They raise earnings and promote social attachment."

At a time of recession, it is more important than ever to invest in education. Those with lower levels of education are more likely to be made unemployed and to stay that way. Their children, are likely to perpetuate the cycle.

Children with learning difficulties are another very vulnerable group. Anecdotally, the numbers of children with different types of difficulties are on the rise. We used to think that ability was more or less fixed. Ironically, the IQ test, which has done more to entrench the idea that children have set levels of ability, was originally designed by Alfred Binet to identify children in French schools who were being failed by the education system.

According to Binet, the scale was designed with a single purpose in mind ; to help design programmes to benefit children. His assumption was that a lower IQ indicated the need for more teaching, not an inability to learn. The wisdom and compassion of his approach in the early 1900s was sadly abandoned by those who imported his method of testing into other countries, and soon IQ tests were being used to categorise children into such charming categories as idiot, imbecile, moron and normal.

Sadly, even today, those who learn differently to others very rapidly categorise themselves in the same cruel way. Our culture idolises those who learn rapidly, without apparent effort. There is an implicit assumption that only the "smart" are likely to achieve academically. Yet over the past few decades, there is more and more evidence that children who struggle can be helped.

One of the most exciting findings in neuroscience is that the brain, far from being set in stone at a relatively early age, retains astonishing levels of plasticity, that is, the ability to change itself. It is ironic that we now know far more than we ever did about how the brain works, but due to lack of funding or larger classes we may not be able to capitalise on it for children.

Dr Norman Doidge is an American psychiatrist who spoke in Dublin in recent weeks. He became interested in the workings of the brain when some of his patients did not advance psychologically as much as he had hoped. The conventional wisdom was that problems were deeply "hardwired" into an unchanging brain, and therefore beyond hope of change. Yet scientists were discovering that this metaphor, taken from computers, was wrong.

His fascinating book, The Brain that Changes Itself, looks at the revolutionary implications of scientists' findings about the organ. He describes people who rewired their brains to deal with previously intractable obsessive compulsive disorder. He tells how an ingenious researcher managed to help people overcome phantom pain in amputated limbs. Previous beliefs about the window of opportunity for stroke victims are being overturned, as evidence mounts that with carefully graded challenges, people could be helped far more than had been realised.

He looks at the work of Michael Merzenich and his colleagues in the area of helping to teach disabled children to improve their cognition and perception. This work led to the design and marketing of FastForWord, computer programmes which are intensive interventions for children with language and reading difficulties.

The programmes develop children's auditory, language and reading skills simultaneously. They make permanent, positive improvements that allow children to learn and read more successfully. Disguised as computer games, they gradually build children's confidence and skills. FastForWord is just one example of an intervention that would have been unthinkable decades ago.

Of course, far from having specially designed computer-based interventions, many Irish schools don't even have decent computers, or broadband access. As the budget approaches, one can only pray that politicians' brains are sufficiently plastic to grasp that short-sighted cuts will have profound social consequences, in some cases for generations.