Cowen has polarised the country [Irish Examiner]
- Published: 21 February 2009
Source: Irish Examiner
TAOISEACH Brian Cowen has polarised the country in a way not seen since the Civil War or the War of Independence. Brother against brother, cousin against cousin, neighbour against neighbour, public sector against private sector.
The Taoiseach reminds me of a stubborn toddler to whom someone has firmly said no. This toddler breaks all the toys so no one will have anything to play with.
By removing so much income from the economy, Mr Cowen is sentencing many more to short working hours or unemployment.
He is hitting every community and all the small businesses based in these communities.
He is hitting the family-run businesses that need the support of the local nurses, gardaí, fire staff, ambulance staff, teachers and local authority staff.
Cabinet members are not out there on our roads in inclement weather, at all hours of the day and night, clearing up after road accidents with our ambulance staff, fire staff and the gardaí.
They are not knocking at front doors to break the news that a precious son or daughter is lying in a hospital injured or worse. They are not working in our A&E departments, fighting with the drunks who are a permanent fixture at the weekends, while all the time trying to help the genuinely sick.
Not for our ministers the drudge of standing in front of teenagers who would prefer to be "anywhere but here", trying to engage them in education for the good of their futures.
Of course, we know how this Government feels about our children, so cherished in our constitution.
Get rid of our special needs assistants and force the most vulnerable of our children out of mainstream education or sink in a world which moves too fast for them.
Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe surely leaves a legacy that ensures he will never be forgotten.
Let's talk about the greed of our politicians who willingly accept inflated pensions while being paid a very generous salary, supposedly to work on our behalf. This is greed in the extreme. A pension should be something you receive after you retire.
Catherine Duggan
Springmarquis
Dungarvan
Co Waterford
Frustrated Gaelscoil Management Board going it alone [Munster Express]
- Published: 20 February 2009
Source: Munster Express
Tramore Gaelscoil, 24 years old and still awaiting delivery of a proper home for its 200 pupils and 8 teachers, have decided to go it alone in engaging architects to design a suitable building, in defiance of an Education Department with which it has become totally frustrated.
Its plan is for a twelve-classroom school to accommodate 300 children on the Crobally Upper site currently occupied by prefab units. The permanent structure was sanctioned by the Department in 2006, following years of persistent campaigning, but it has since failed to proceed with the appointment of a design team and a technical examination of the site, as a pre-requisite for commencing construction.
Tired of waiting, the Board of Management sought permission to do that themselves, but the Department said "no".
"We burned that response and decided to go ahead ourselves in any event", School Principal Daithi de Paor told Tuesday night's meeting of Tramore Town Council. He was reporting to the Council on the up-to-date situation and seeking its support for the Management Board's plan of action, which was readily forthcoming.
"We have heard all the excuses from the Department and now we need our cause championed politically at local and national level", he said, describing the lack of a proper school structure as "a shame".
One room
Mr de Paor recalled that the Gaelscoil started out in 1985, in a single room within Tramore House provided by the Council's predecessors, the Town Commissioners. Initially there was one teacher and 29 pupils.
In 1989, with demand growing, the school moved to Stella Maris House where it expanded through the following years from 3 to 5 rooms. There it remained until 2003 at which stage there was a transfer to the current site, identified by the Management Board and purchased in due course by the Department of Education. Currently 8 prefab classrooms are located there.
In November 2006 the Department agreed to build 12 classrooms on the site, but it has since failed to progress the development and 27 months on the wait continues.
"We are not included among schools listed for architectural planning and it is in that knowledge and through total frustration that we are proceeding ourselves with a view to presenting a proposal to the planning authority and then, hopefully passed, confronting the Department with it", Mr de Paor told the Council.
He disclosed that dhb Architects of Broad St in Waterford had undertaken to do the relevant work free of charge and said a number of public meetings had been held to garner support and guidance from parents and the general public. The next of those is listed for the Grand Hotel on Thursday, February 26. "We want the project to be community driven", he said.
Tramore Development Committee and Waterford Leader Partnership had come on board and Mr Michael Power from the latter organisation was in attendance at the Council meeting with Mr de Paor.
Full support
Said Mr de Paor: "We want the public to be aware of the stark fact that we are 24 years without a proper school building and continue to be ignored by the Department in our efforts to have one provided, despite having a suitable site available.
Mr Power said he envisaged the new building doubling up as a community centre when not in use as a school. There were at least 60 groups and organisations who had expressed an interest in its use, he confirmed. "Hopefully within two or three years we will have a Gaelscoil doubling up as a well utilised community centre", he added.
Mayor Raymond Hayden, pledging the Council's full support, said it was nothing short of a scandal that a school so badly needed had not been built.
Other members spoke in like vein and Town Manager Brian White said that from a County Council perspective every assistance possible would be given.
Absence of rational analysis in debate on special needs [The Corkman]
- Published: 19 February 2009
Source: The Corkman
THE discussion over the past few days about why some schools were no longer entitled to retain teachers in classes for children with mild general learning disability has been marked by an absence of rational fact-based analysis. The alarmist misrepresentation of the issues involved by some commentators and opposition politicians is deeply regrettable.
I'd like to set out some simple facts.
Firstly, I'd like to assure people that the decision was not related in any way to the recent measures to reduce public expenditure. Allocations to schools typically increase or decrease depending on pupil enrolment. In the case of classes for mild general learning disability, the normal pupil teacher ratio that applies is 11 to 1.
However, my Department allows schools to retain a teaching post where it has a minimum of nine pupils in the class. In the 119 schools where classes are now being withdrawn, the number of pupils had fallen below this minimum of nine per class. Over half of the classes have five or fewer children.
It should be rememThe discussion on the provision of special
needs facilities in schools is lacking in rational, fact-based analysis, according to Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe. Here he argues the government's case on the
very heated issue. bered that the establishment of classes for mild general learning disability pre-dates many of the developments in special education policy in recent years.
All national schools have received extra teaching support to enable them to meet the needs of pupils with high-incidence special needs such as a mild general learning disability. This means that schools are automatically allocated learning support resource teaching based on their enrolment.
Pupils who were in these special classes will have their special educational needs met in mainstream classes by the class teacher and through the support of the extra teaching resource allocation.
The majority of primary schools around the country don't have special classes for pupils with mild general learning disability. In most schools, the needs of these children are met through mainstream classes and their extra teaching resource allocation.
In fact, some schools in recent years voluntarily disbanded their mild general learning disability classes and integrated those pupils with their peers in mainstream classes.
There are now about 19,000 adults in our schools working solely with children with special educational needs. The number of resource and learning support teachers in our schools has increased from just 2,000 in 1998 to more than 8,000 now. More than 1,000 other teachers support children in our special schools.
The Government is committed to providing targeted support for children with special needs. We've allocated extra funding of €20 million for this year to continue to enhance frontline services for these children, with half of that budget given to my Department and the other half given to the health services.
The parents of all children with mild general learning disability should know that their children in mainstream classes will continue to get a quality education from committed class teachers and extra support from the resource teacher.
High Court backs school in dispute over enrolment [Irish Times]
- Published: 18 February 2009
Source: Irish Times
A NATIONAL school has won a High Court order overturning an "irrational" and unlawful direction from the Department of Education requiring it to enrol two more pupils when it had previously turned down 41 others because of lack of space.
Ms Justice Mary Irvine ruled that a specially appointed appeals committee exceeded its powers in holding St Molaga's National School in Balbriggan, Dublin, to take the two extra pupils.
She quashed a direction that the school enrol the two children, who have since gone to another school, after finding the direction was irrational and had failed to consider relevant matters while taking into account irrelevant factors.
It was not the function of this committee to sort out a problem of "shortage of school places in an expanding community", the judge said.
The decision related to the system of appeals ; Section 29 committees set up under the Education Act 1998 ; for parents dissatisfied as to why their children were refused enrolment.
In the St Molaga's case, the High Court heard the parents of two girls who were refused places had appealed the decision and a Section 29 committee recommended the school take them after holding it had the capacity to do so.
The school was then directed to comply by the secretary general of the Department of Education and Science.
The school board brought High Court proceedings challenging the decision. The court heard St Molaga's, which had expanded rapidly in the past 10 years, had refused to install another pre-fab on its grounds because the school electrical system would need a major upgrade to accommodate that.
The board of management was willing to expand to a 24-classroom school but only on the basis of permanent accommodation being provided, which had not been forthcoming, it said.
Ms Justice Irvine said St Molaga's board of management had made a decision in March 2007 to only take pupils from its adjacent junior feeder school, St Peter and Paul's, for a period of four years. It hoped to obtain new accommodation within that timeframe.
The board had informed the department of this decision and by the time the two children in this case sought places, this policy had been in force for 11 months and 41 prospective students had been told there were no places.
Against this background, the judge ruled the Section 29 committee had exceeded its powers under the Education Act in purporting to carry out a full appeal into an effective decision as to the school's capacity, based on management considerations.
The power of a Section 29 committee was intended to be confined to a right to review the lawfulness and/or reasonableness of a board of management's decision to refuse enrolment, the judge said.
Ms Justice Irvine said it would take very clear language in Section 29 to convince her the legislature intended to establish an appeals committee which could reverse a management decision made by a board of management. If that were the case, a board of management could be forced to enrol more students than it considered safe.
This could expose a board to litigation concerning which the Section 29 committee would "undoubtedly contend it had no liability", Ms Justice Irvine added.
Flexibility on learning difficulty cutbacks signalled by O'Keeffe [Irish Times]
- Published: 18 February 2009
Source: Irish Times
By: EOIN BURKE-KENNEDY
MINISTER FOR Education Batt O'Keeffe has signalled a partial rowback on cuts to special teacher support for over 350 children with mild learning difficulties.
But he said yesterday he would be willing to allow schools in close proximity to pool their special needs classes rather than merging the pupils into mainstream lessons.
Speaking outside an education conference in Dublin Castle, the Minister defended his decision to cut the special teacher support, saying "we have pupil-teacher ratios that we have to live by and over 50 per cent of the special needs classes have five or less students and are not meeting any of the criteria set down for those classes".
However, the Minister said: "Some of those schools may now come together and share and make a class out of two schools and that is an option I am willing to discuss with the schools in question."
His comments appear to pave the way for some schools to keep separate classes for certain pupils who are deemed to benefit from being taught outside the mainstream classroom.
The Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) said the suggestion by Mr O'Keeffe that he will look at the rationalisation of special classes rather than the closure of all 128 classes was the first sign that he understood the consequences of the announcement for the children concerned.
The union's general secretary John Carr said: "At long last it seems the Minister is prepared to look at the needs of children rather than trying to save what in national terms is petty cash.
"It now appears the Minister is prepared to examine the matter as an educational issue rather than a financial one only," he said.
Fine Gael's education spokesman Brian Hayes said: "If Mr O'Keeffe is now suggesting that he will rationalise some of the classes as against suppressing all of the classes, this represents some progress."
Mr Hayes said he was concerned that the Minister did not understand the impact of his announcement of last week and had no educational justification for the position he had taken.
Mr O'Keeffe rejected claims his cutbacks were made on financial grounds, saying "it has been felt for some time in educational circles that children with mild intellectual disabilities were better off with their peers in the general classroom".
He said many special needs classes had been disbanded and the pupils in these schools were now integrating into the normal class with the resource/learning supports allocated under the General Allocation Model introduced in 2005.
"I have checked with some of the teachers in these schools and they are quite confident that students and pupils with mild general intellectual disabilities can integrate properly and can grow within those circumstances," Mr O'Keeffe said.
Mr Carr acknowledged that the Minister's assertion that some schools voluntarily closed special classes and integrated children was true.
"But what the Minister failed to say was that this resulted from assessments by parents, teachers and other professionals of what was best for the children in question.
"Such decisions were based on children's interests, not financial considerations, " the INTO general secretary said.
Last week, the 119 schools which run some 128 special needs classes were informed by letter of the decision to axe the teacher supports without any prior consultation.
The move, which is to be implemented in the next school year, would save the Department of Education a mere €7 million from its total budget of €9 billion.
Under the current rules, primary schools are allowed to establish a special needs class if they have 11 pupils with a mild general learning disability.
The Department of Education can withdraw the allocation of a special needs teacher in cases where the number of such pupils falls below nine.
