Second-level schools crying out for leaders [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 16 September 2011
The system by which second-level principals are appointed is defective and needs urgent reform. We need leaders, not people motivated by money, writes Pat O’Mahony
SCHOOLS face enormous challenges in cultivating a citizenry capable of responding to the challenges of modern living and to be able to deliver the outcomes demanded of them they must be well-led and managed.
In Ireland, however, school leadership is in the midst of a deepening malaise that demands radical surgery.
The players in post-primary education (principals, deputy principals, teachers, board of management members and students) feel disempowered. Everybody owns second-level education (the media, IBEC and even the ubiquitous professor Ed Walsh) except those most intimately involved with it.
'Education will not be spared' [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 16 September 2011
NO areas of education will be spared from potential cuts in the 2012 Budget, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has warned.
He said calls to spare education from cuts fail to appreciate the scale of the challenge facing the country. Despite encouraging international indications that our efforts at fiscal adjustment are being recognised, he said social protection, health and education cannot avoid the axe as they are the largest areas of public spending.
He faces pressure to cut his budget because of rising primary and second level pupil numbers, in his submission to the comprehensive spending review being overseen by Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Brendan Howlin.
Full Story: www.examiner.ie
Rally denounces cuts in special needs provision [IrishTimes]
- Published: 15 September 2011
PEOPLE PROTESTING against cuts in the number of special needs assistants (SNAs) and in resource teachers’ hours gathered again outside the Dáil yesterday.
Some 300 parents, teachers, children and community representatives marched from the Central Bank in Dublin to the Dáil gates, where a similar protest took place in July.
Many of those partaking in yesterday’s march expressed frustration that no progress had been made since the last demonstration.
“I think view has even hardened at this stage. They are quite determined to push through with these cuts which are setting us back 25 years in the educational system,” said Philip Mullen, assistant general secretary of the Impact trade union.
“I’m not sure where we go from here – we will just keep up the fight to continue to lobby for this. Our own internal research would show that there is no major saving in what the Government is doing – that if our children ultimately end up back in special education that they will cost just as much.”
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
Nine children start full-time classes as staffing row resolved [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 15 September 2011
NINE children who had been restricted to part-time classes at a special school because of a dispute over staffing levels have started full-time classes after the row was resolved.
Delighted parents told the Irish Examiner that an extra teacher is being funded for a month to allow St Gabriel’s Special School in the Cork suburb of Bishopstown to assess their individual needs and decide which classes they should join. After losing two of its 10 teachers since last summer, the school said it was unable to offer full-time placement to the nine new pupils who have severe autism or profound disabilities.
Instead, they were offered part-time provision of two or three days on alternating weeks, but the Department of Education and National Council for Special Education told the school this was unacceptable as it still had more staff than is normally sanctioned for a school of its size dealing with the category of special needs pupils it caters for.
The board of the 38-pupil-school said yesterday it did not want to comment on the resolution of the matter.
Full Story: www.examiner.ie
Improving maths levels ‘will take 10 years’ [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 15 September 2011
GOVERNMENT efforts to reverse falling maths standards will not be enough to see improvements for another decade, the head of the engineering profession has claimed.
As mixed results in the grades of more than 56,000 Junior Certificate students showed some cause for optimism, Engineers Ireland president PJ Rudden said maths education in Ireland was a total systemic failure in national education structures.
The numbers taking higher-level maths at Leaving Certificate fell below 16% for the first time this summer and Irish teenagers have fallen dramatically in international maths rankings.
Full Story: www.examiner.ie
