Government accused of breaking promises on school building projects
- Published: 30 September 2008
By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent
CLAIMS of broken election promises and a lack of transparency have been levelled at the Government after Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe's first school building announcement yesterday.
Many of the 25 schools on the list of projects taking the next step in the building programme, including seven cleared to begin construction, appear to have jumped ahead of others that were promised two years ago that their building works would be under way by last February.
Of 54 primary schools given such a commitment by Mr O'Keeffe's predecessor Mary Hanafin in November 2006, only 20 have been cleared for work to begin.
Fine Gael's education spokesman, Brian Hayes, described the building programme as a political lucky-bag and called for a return to the system operated by Noel Dempsey when he had charge of funds up to 2004, with the priority of all schools clearly available on the Department of Education website.
The Irish National Teachers' Organisation has said there has to be more openness from the department to explain why some schools are leapfrogging others to the top of list.
However, Mr O'Keeffe's spokesperson said the schools selected yesterday had the greatest urgency and progress was being made on the remaining 34 schools from the November 2006 announcement.
Among those still waiting for approval is Kilfinane National School, whose pupils face another year queuing for an outside toilet, despite having contractors lined up since earlier this year to begin work on a new six-classroom school.
Principal Siobhan O'Flynn said staff and pupils were very disappointed at being left out of the minister's announcement, but remain hopeful of being included in the next group of schools given clearance early next year.
However, uncertainty remains about the level of funding that will be available for school buildings next year ahead of the budget next month, although Mr O'Keeffe will be lobbying for an increase on this year's €586 million fund.
Complex instruction teaching technique puts 'streaming' to the test
- Published: 27 September 2008
By: Alexandra Frean, Education Editor
A radical maths teaching technique that mixes children of all abilities together so they can help to teach each other is being tested in England.
The technique, known as complex instruction, has been developed by academics in California where research found that children in mixed-ability maths classes routinely outperformed those grouped by ability (in "sets" or "streams"), were better behaved and enjoyed maths more.
The technique challenges the educational orthodoxy that mixed-ability teaching holds back the brightest students and fails to meet the needs of the least able.
Setting or ability grouping is an educational leitmotif of both the Government and the Tories, but remains controversial. Supporters insist that it leads to better exam results, particularly in core subjects such as English and maths. But critics say it is divisive.
Complex instruction works by dividing pupils into groups of four and assigning each one a role team captain, facilitator, resource manager and recorder/reporter. The groups are given a mathematical task to solve together and are told that they must each be responsible for each other's learning. If one member of the group has difficulties with the task, it is the role of the others to help them to understand.
At the end of the lesson one member of each group will be chosen to present their findings to the class.
Because pupils do not know in advance which member of their group will make the presentation they must ensure they are all capable of doing so.
Jo Boaler, Marie Curie Professor of Education at the University of Sussex, who is pioneering complex instruction in Britain, said that pupils who were perceived as being good at maths because they answered questions quickly were not always the best at explaining how they got their answers.
Pupils who were less confident were often able to tease out explanations from the more able students through their questions. This helped the students who needed help as well as those giving the help. In fact, the initial high-achieving students were the ones who benefited most — their achievement accelerated faster than anyone else's, supporting the old adage that you do not understand something until you explain it to someone else.
"A broad approach to mathematics is taught and so everyone is good at some aspects of the subject," Professor Boaler said.
Carlos Cabana, of San Lorenzo High School in California, who has developed the teaching technique over a period of 20 years, said one key role for teachers was not to give pupils the answers, but to ask them questions that made them recognise what their strengths were within the group.
"You have to help them find their confidence, even if it is buried under some thick layers of ice," he said.
Professor Boaler followed the progress of 700 teenagers in the US through four years of high school between the ages of 14 to 18.
At the end of the four years, 41 per cent of the mixed-ability group were in advanced classes for calculus (similar to one year of A-level mathematics), compared with 27 per cent of pupils in the schools using setting and traditional teaching methods.
The findings were all the more remarkable because the mixed-ability group came from more disadvantaged backgrounds with significantly lower maths scores at the start of the study.
Professor Boaler presented her findings to Downing Street advisers last year. This resulted in the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust inviting schools to be trained in the approach and to use it within their new BTEC maths course.
The results of the research have also fed into the Primary Review.
Bishop defends right to Catholic education
- Published: 27 September 2008
by: Ruadhán Mac Cormaic
REDUCING THE debate over school patronage to a question of churches "clinging to power" trivialises what is at stake, Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick has said.
Addressing school principals at the Ceist education conference in Tralee, Co Kerry, Bishop Murray said that while no secondary school could ignore the need to prepare students for exams and equip them with the skills necessary to be good citizens, these did not address the fundamental purpose of education.
Rather, what education addressed, he said, was "the question about the meaning of life in all its dimensions".
"It is about the discovery of the true, the beautiful, the good; it is about the vast horizon of meaning which can unite all our longing and all our questions." He said that any education which ignored the question of meaning would be doomed to shallowness.
Ceist (Catholic Education - an Irish Schools Trust) took responsibility for trusteeship of more than 100 Catholic secondary schools last year.
Making the case for the right to Catholic education, Bishop Murray argued that the State could not address this fundamental question of meaning in life.
"Nobody is elected to political office with a mandate to determine how questions about the meaning of life should be approached, still less how they should be answered."
The family was the primary and natural educator, he said
Insurance swallows up school grants
- Published: 27 September 2008
By Lisa-Anne Crookes
SOARING insurance costs because of vandalism to classrooms and equipment are now accounting for a large chunk of state grants awarded to schools in some areas.
The cost of insuring schools is now eating up to 20pc of Government-awarded grants given to meet the day-to-day running costs of secondary schools in Dublin.
According to the Joint Managerial Body (JMB), an average of 16pc of the capitation grant goes on insurance, but this rises to 20pc in Dublin and much higher in disadvantaged areas.
A pre-budget submission by the JMB showed that the country's 394 voluntary secondary schools are spending a whopping €7.4million on insurance every year.
It also described how the Department of Education and Science uses different approaches to fund public liability insurance for schools and students.
Community and comprehensive schools are exempted by the State from paying any insurance costs at all, as the schools are indemnified.
Vocational schools can use special arrangements through vocational education committees (VEC) which are members of the Irish Public Bodies Mutual Insurance.
"Only secondary schools, who must fund the cost of insurance from the capitation grant, are open to market forces and must find insurance cover in the private sector," stated the submission.
The submission also showed that in recent years secondary schools have faced new charges for water and waste for which they have received no increase in the school capitation.
A policy of not charging schools for water and waste has been suggested.
Parents set to pay up as schools face shortfall
- Published: 27 September 2008
By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent
PARENTS and local communities could be asked to raise one-third of the budgets of the country's secondary schools again next year because of an €18 million shortfall in government funding, a report to the Department of Education warns.
Some schools could have to raise up to €250,000 just to provide the same services as those in schools fully funded by the State, according to the pre-budget submission of the Joint Managerial Body (JMB).
The JMB represents the boards of the 394 schools in the voluntary secondary sector, run or previously run by the religious orders.
Unlike the remaining 340 second level schools in the vocational, community and comprehensive sectors — which have the costs of insurance, caretakers and secretarial support covered by the State — voluntary secondary schools must pay these from their day-to-day budgets.
All second-level schools receive €331 for every student to cover running costs, totalling around €150,000 for the average 450-student school. But the JMB estimates that they are €98 short for every student compared to those in the other sectors after paying for insurance and ancillary staff.
Despite a commitment in the Programme for Government to bridge this gap within two years, only €15 extra was given in the budget last December. The JMB said the next two budgets should provide the €17.6m extra needed to give them equal funding.
"Steep increases in the cost of heat, energy, phones, water, classroom materials and cleaning has put an intolerable burden on schools trying to make ends meet. More and more of them are forced to engage in fund-raising or seek voluntary contributions from parents to survive," said JMB general secretary Ferdia Kelly.
"The stark reality is that voluntary secondary schools have to raise more than 30% of annual expenditure through fundraising and parents' contributions, that's as much as €240,000 for a large school of around 800 pupils," he said.
He said the principal of a medium-sized school paid €20,000 for oil this week but was unsure if it would meet the school's winter heating needs. All schools must also use their capitation funding to pay the annual €3.50 charge per pupil payable to local authorities for water which was introduced last Christmas and rises to €4 next year.
The JMB is also seeking more teachers to reduce class sizes, increased spending on school buildings and a start to the €252 million school computers commitments in the National Development Plan.
Meanwhile, an advisory body to Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe has slammed his decision this week to shut down the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment said it created uncertainty about the early learning framework it had recently developed, and jeopardised the considerable public money, agency time and expertise invested in it.
