Maintaining top standards amid cuts worries teachers [Independent]
- Published: 22 June 2011
THE first 100 days of the Fine Gael/Labour coalition has brought little hope to teachers who are battling to educate children amid a raft of cuts, according to the Dundalk branch of the INTO.
'The three areas of concern is the huge level of unemployment among newly qualified teachers, the cuts to staffing levels in schools, and the reduction in language supports and assistance for children with special needs,' said Brid Kindlon, Secretary of the Dundalk branch.
She explained that a department 'embargo' has meant that despite many retirements, no new teachers are being taken on in schools.
' There are no new appointments being made which is really affecting teachers in middle management as they cannot be promoted.'
'This is against a background where around 2000 teachers are emerging from teaching college, and fifty per cent of those have no chance of employment.'
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Rush NS kids make other schools Green with envy [Independent.ie]
- Published: 22 June 2011
RUSH primary school students celebrated the year's successes with popcorn and a well-earned sense of pride when their fourth Green Flag was raised.
St Catherine's National School, Rush, proved their dedication to a greener environment and their commitment to reducing their carbon footprints on the 10th June when students, parents and teachers spent the day celebrating their environmental victories with the Green Flag, awarded by An Taisce, fluttering in the sky.
'It's excellent,' said Fingal School Principal, Ger O'Se. 'It wasn't just one day a week that the kids would walk or cycle to school, it was every day.'
Full Story: www.independent.ie
Schools will not be able to appeal cuts for at least four months [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 22 June 2011
HUNDREDS of schools will be told about cuts to special needs assistants (SNAs) on Friday, but they will not be able to appeal for at least four months.
The National Council for Special Education will write to schools tomorrow about their allocation for the next school year. But Education Minister Ruairi Quinn already announced last Friday that 475 posts were being held back from primary and second level schools to cater for emergency applications, children who arrive into schools during the school year, or pupils who will be newly-assessed with a disability or syndrome that qualifies them for the help of an SNA.
His department is already paying 10,802 SNAs but has said it must reduce this back to 10,575 by year’s end to remain within a staff ceiling under the EU/IMF bailout terms. The additional SNAs in place are mostly accounted for by the recognition of 13 new special schools catering for pupils with autism.
Full Story: www.examiner.ie
Groups lobby Government for transfer of school patronage [eecho.ie]
- Published: 22 June 2011
A range of groups competing for a larger slice of the patronage of Irish primary schools will begin presenting their case to the Department of Education today.
Currently, more than 90% of national schools in the Republic are run by the Catholic church.
Educate Together, the Islamic Foundation of Ireland and Gaelscoileanna are among the groups hoping to increase and diversify the options for primary education.
The Department of Education is expected to respond to their submissions later this year.
Full Story: www.eecho.ie
Only two social networking sites fully protect minors [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 22 June 2011
ONLY two social networking sites protect the privacy of minors by default, an EU study has shown.
Efforts to cut down on cyber-bullying, abuse and sexual grooming through improving privacy settings have been successful over the past year. But many social networking sites, including the most popular, Facebook, have not taken all the steps necessary to protect young users.
Only Bebo and MySpace among the 14 sites tested for the European Commission automatically prevented young people’s profiles being accessible to users other than their list of friends.
Tagging people in pictures is also becoming a problem as it makes it very easy to search for a person’s photos online.
The majority of sites allowed friends of friends to connect directly with a user, even if they were strangers. They could contact them through personal messages and in some cases add comments and pictures on their public profiles.
Full Story: www.examiner.ie
