Educational cuts

luckat · 27-10-2008 9:55am #1

Fianna Fáil have made themselves look doltish and unable to plan for the future with their education cuts.

What would you do?

If it were my call, I'd start by instituting a set of superb scholarships - like the ones called after the seven 1916 leaders that go to the students who come first in the Leaving Cert.

I'd make sixteen sets of scholarships, calling them something like the Ireland Scholarships, and naming them for the sixteen leaders executed in 1916 - have the Tomás MacDonagh Science Scholarships, the Pádraig Pearse Arts Scholarships, the James Connolly Business Scholarships (heh!) and so on.

Not just one scholarship for each, but maybe 500 of each, which would be competitive, and won by hard work and talent.

This would ensure that talented people could get a university education - some of the scholarships would fund a primary degree, and some postgraduate work, and they would pay for everything: fees, books, food, lodgings, walking-around money - but it would satisfy those who think education isn't a right.

Run_to_da_hills · 27-10-2008 11:18am

Winy not a Charles Haughy, Berty O Hearn, Brian Cowen and a Mary or Harney scholarship :pac::pac:

luckat · 27-10-2008 3:40pm

Absolutely! Feel free to suggest the subjects

Biggins · 27-10-2008 6:56pm

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Winy not a Charles Haughy, Berty O Hearn, Brian Cowen and a Mary or Harney scholarship :pac::pac:

What would subjects would the scholarships cover?
"Imaginative and Createful Accounting 101"

anthony4335 · 27-10-2008 7:07pm

Don't forget "Brown envelop economics".

nesf · 28-10-2008 4:35am

We already have scholarships for postgraduate work which are well paying (circa 16K a year last time I checked) and highly competitive as well as the more common "fees paid for in exchange for tutorial work done during the course" style stuff. The problems in funding isn't for the students it's for the colleges providing the education to the students.

Free education has resulted in the amount of money that colleges get per student decreasing. This will naturally decrease the quality of education provided to each student. This is the problem that needs sorting first, not extra scholarships.

luckat · 28-10-2008 9:41am

You're right, nesf.

But postgrad scholarships aren't going to help poor kids get in to do a primary degree.

And a bunch of scholarships that rewarded hard work, creativity and intelligence would certainly change the balance of attitude in students.

djpbarry · 28-10-2008 10:44am

nesf wrote: »

We already have scholarships for postgraduate work which are well paying (circa 16K a year last time I checked)...

You think €16k per year is well-paid?

simu · 28-10-2008 9:11pm

djpbarry wrote: »

You think €16k per year is well-paid?

For a student, yes. It's tax free, two lump sums into your account twice a year.

nesf · 29-10-2008 1:44am

djpbarry wrote: »

You think €16k per year is well-paid?

For postgraduate work? Yeah, it's not bad at all considering it's highly unusual for the private sector to let someone off full time for three years to do a PhD. Within the context of a research post doc, you're looking at best at circa 20K in this country for most fields so the 16K Government sponsored scholarships are ok. You'll get 20-30K+ for Post Docs, I've seen them going for over 40K once or twice. It's similar to the "apprentice level" in any profession, you get peanuts at the start but the wage rapidly accelerates if you can keep progressing.

djpbarry · 29-10-2008 11:30am

simu wrote: »

For a student, yes. It's tax free, two lump sums into your account twice a year.

Most get paid monthly actually, but anyway...

I don't really consider post-grads to be students - it's a step up from that. There's far more responsibility. You're not just learning, you have to produce something tangible.

nesf wrote: »

For postgraduate work? Yeah, it's not bad at all considering it's highly unusual for the private sector to let someone off full time for three years to do a PhD.

Fair enough. I suppose I would agree with your earlier point that the problem is the under-funded institutions. If the institution is fully equipped for research, then funding the post-grad is less of an issue.

nesf wrote: »

It's similar to the "apprentice level" in any profession, you get peanuts at the start but the wage rapidly accelerates if you can keep progressing.

True, but most post-grads (that I am aware of) earn less than €16k. I was on €10.8k per annum when I started my PhD in 2005. I suppose I'm looking at it from the point of view of trying to attract people into doing research and it's difficult to convince prospective post-grads with such low pay. There are several academics in my faculty who have funding for projects, but they are having serious difficulty attracting anyone to do the work because the pay is so low (~€12.5k for the first 2 years, I think).

nesf · 29-10-2008 8:04pm

djpbarry wrote: »

Most get paid monthly actually, but anyway...

She's talking about the IRCHSS grants which I was talking about in the original post. Scholarships specific to departments are monthly all right from what I've heard but we're talking about government funded ones so the general all Arts/all Science (IRCSET) are what's relevant. Plus other grants will be influenced by what the generic grants are paying out.

djpbarry wrote: »

Fair enough. I suppose I would agree with your earlier point that the problem is the under-funded institutions. If the institution is fully equipped for research, then funding the post-grad is less of an issue.
True, but most post-grads (that I am aware of) earn less than €16k. I was on €10.8k per annum when I started my PhD in 2005. I suppose I'm looking at it from the point of view of trying to attract people into doing research and it's difficult to convince prospective post-grads with such low pay. There are several academics in my faculty who have funding for projects, but they are having serious difficulty attracting anyone to do the work because the pay is so low (~€12.5k for the first 2 years, I think).

The IRCHSS/IRCHSET grants used to be 10K I think and have been increased.

Essentially the problem is chronic underfunding of the academy as a whole in this country. Lecturers wages are good but the broader funding available to departments in colleges is limited by both the total amount available (in the sense of funding per student across the country) and an absurd system of receiving money per head of student which emphasises numbers over quality at undergraduate level. Then, I would subscribe to the view that there are a lot of people doing undergraduate degrees who are nowhere close to the academic standard that should be required in those degrees, but then I'm one of those elitist types.

Villain · 29-10-2008 11:58pm

12,000 was the estimated numbers that protested tonight, thats quite high for a very cold wet October night.

The educational adjustments are well-intentioned i.e. stop letting tachers take sick days without cert's and pay two people to for the same teaching hours but the affects of these cuts go far and wide.

I think the Green's are under pressure with this issue, I have been emailing my local Green TD and she in fairness has replied and while she was defending most of the measures taken in the Budget, she agreed with me on the education cuts been very tough and I won't post her reply here as respect to her but I think the Green's have tried hard to get these cuts changed but FF can't bend any more at the minute but will make changes if the pressure comes to bear on schools

Trotter · 30-10-2008 12:03am

Villain wrote: »

The educational adjustments are well-intentioned i.e. stop letting tachers take sick days without cert's

Why should teachers have to get a cert on the first day's sick leave?

I'm sick and tired of this kind of statement. Why should I not be allowed to have a sick day without a cert, and for every other job its ok.

This demonstration is about teachers fighting for children's rights.

Villain · 30-10-2008 12:15am

Trotter I have family members who are teaching and they all agree many many teachers take advantage of the system, trust me I object to the cuts my other half is subbing while she finds a position and she will lose most of hours that along with the loss of all sport teams in my old school and all field trips is awful.

I totally disagree with the cuts but I can see what they were trying (badly) to address, the number of free classes I used to get in school was crazy, that was 8 years ago and my teaching relations say it has got worse. The subbing bill must be crazy.

Trotter · 30-10-2008 12:33am

I'd consider myself to a be a healthy chap, thankfully. Now.. Come January, and I have 30+ children in a small room that are coughing, sneezing, sharing pens, pencils, etc, ALL of us are going to get colds and flus.

I battle with them every year. I've been out sick twice in my career, both times I'd put down to working in a greenhouse for germs. One of those was after the principal sent me home. I'd open the windows only they're so old that they don't stay open very easily.

I don't take sick days easily. I don't like being tarred as someone who rides the system. Theres people in every job who call in sick when they don't need to. If some teachers do it, it doesn't mean that every teacher does, to the point where they have to remove the cover for 1 day. Reduce it to a day, fine! Don't take away the right we have to one day covered sick leave. It makes no sense.

I'm personally getting really sick of working my tail off every day, doing 40+ hours a week, and then being treated like dirt by people in general from TDs to everyday people who just think teachers are something they scrape off their shoe.

I'm a primary teacher now, but I was a secondary sub. Most of my hours as a sub came from teachers who were bringing teams to matches, Young Scientist etc, Geography field trips etc.

lostexpectation · 30-10-2008 9:01am

all these people saying students should be in classs 365, learning rote for test.... ???

ednwireland · 30-10-2008 10:44am

Trotter wrote: »

I'm personally getting really sick of working my tail off every day, doing 40+ hours a week, and then being treated like dirt by people in general from TDs to everyday people who just think teachers are something they scrape off their shoe.

QUOTE]

join the club the business i work in is cutting wages and putting people on short time, the ones left have to pick up the work. i dont have a pension (i closed my own business last year after turning over 16k left to pay off the debts)
dont get me wrong i think teachers should be treated better i think the school building programmes should be sorted. but i do think the entire public sector should be transparently benchmarked against the curent private sector wages.
dont see anyione jumping up and down for that (saw that idiot from the into on the news last night avoiding the question).

just think everyone needs to look around and see whats happening and i do think the cuts are in the wrong places but this gov. as so little ability in so many areas its not suprising they cut the easy things to cut

djpbarry · 30-10-2008 12:23pm

Trotter wrote: »

This demonstration is about teachers fighting for children's rights.

Maybe, but…

ednwireland wrote: »

…i do think the entire public sector should be transparently benchmarked against the curent private sector wages.
dont see anyione jumping up and down for that (saw that idiot from the into on the news last night avoiding the question)…

…it seems the teachers are only prepared to do so much. If I recall correctly, John Carr didn’t dodge the suggestion that teachers earning €50k or more should have their pay frozen, he rejected it (I stand to be corrected on that).

nhughes100 · 30-10-2008 12:25pm

How about extending the school year? 1 month off with two mid terms (1 week each) at Easter and Halloween. The holidays that teachers and academics get are scandelous.

I don't know how you'd go about benchmarking against private sector as the jobs don't really exist there and you can't just change everyones payscale as they've all signed contracts and the government would lose if the case went to the labour court, so more money wasted. In any case nobody ever went into teaching to get rich.

In the meantime we still have electronic voting machines rusting away and FAS getting a billion quid a year when there was full employment. The government wastes money hand over fist, there are easier targets then substitute teachers.

I also think an element of fees is inevitable and I think justifiable. If you give someone something for nothing they won't appreciate it as much as if they earned or had to pay for it.

Finally all this talk about public sector pay freezes is fine but what are we actually going to get out of it? How can we be assured that taking a hit doesn't mean that the money isn't going to be wasted somewhere else?

Trotter · 30-10-2008 1:43pm

nhughes100 wrote: »

How about extending the school year? 1 month off with two mid terms (1 week each) at Easter and Halloween. The holidays that teachers and academics get are scandelous.

Ok, but what do you do for the extra 4 weeks? Do you focus only on the weak 5 or 10 children in the class of 33?

nesf · 30-10-2008 2:12pm

nhughes100 wrote: »

The holidays that teachers and academics get are scandelous.

Um, academics are expected to continue researching and publishing when they aren't lecturing, it's not like it is with teachers who (for the most part) don't have duties outside of teaching.

nhughes100 · 30-10-2008 3:16pm

Trotter wrote: »

Ok, but what do you do for the extra 4 weeks? Do you focus only on the weak 5 or 10 children in the class of 33?

There's a fairly long list of stuff they could do, your idea of focusing on the weaker kids has merit. Extra revision time, more time for extra curricular activities, more scope for covering material in the event of a prolonged absense by teacher or student. It's basically a zero cost solution to providing more teaching time. The unions won't have a leg to stand on as it would only highlight the lack of hours that they do and would be extremely unpopular as there is nothing to hide behind, unlike the higher class sizes argument.

nesf wrote: »

Um, academics are expected to continue researching and publishing when they aren't lecturing, it's not like it is with teachers who (for the most part) don't have duties outside of teaching.

Supposed to but if you just want to turn up and do your 12-16 hours a week there's nothing to stop you, however academics generally have lower teaching hours then primary or secondary school teachers with the same or better holidays and with much better pay. I can tell you they are thin on the ground during the Summer.

djpbarry · 30-10-2008 3:29pm

nhughes100 wrote: »

Supposed to but if you just want to turn up and do your 12-16 hours a week there's nothing to stop you...

Except the threat of losing your job. An academic who is not actively involved in research will not last very long at any third-level institution worth it's salt. Now, there's a difference between full-time academic staff, who are paid a salary, plus expenses, and dedicated lecturing staff, who are generally paid by the hour and are usually not involved in research.

Trotter · 30-10-2008 3:29pm

nhughes100 wrote: »

it would only highlight the lack of hours that they do and would be extremely unpopular as there is nothing to hide behind, unlike the higher class sizes argument.

Hang on, I do the same hours in a year as any private service worker. I like a lot of workers, am salaried. It takes me 40+ hours a week to do my job the way I think it needs to be done. I spend a fortnight before September getting ready for the new class.

Am I the norm? I don't know. But I do resent being tarred as someone who doesn't work as hard as anyone else.

I used to work in financial services in the IFSC. I work longer hours now than I did then.. but the attitude in Ireland would suggest that now I'm lazy, but then I wasn't.

dimerocks · 30-10-2008 8:31pm

Batt seems to be quite content with using the poor statement that ten years ago class sizes larger. What he seems to forget is that ten years ago the qualitative nature of Irish primary and secondary classes would have been totally different.
10 years ago the majority of kids in primary schools would have been Irish or have English as a first language. Classes are now completely different with kids coming from many different backgrounds. There is more of a need than ever for a more involved level of teaching. If there are a few kids in class that don't speak good English and can't get to grasp of things they are going to struggle and hold up classes.
What is needed is more support structures for teachers and it shouldn't be the responsibility of parents to fund raise for this. It is the states responsibility to provide the best education possible and the cuts simply change things. Prior to the budget schools were already struggling especially in rural areas. tis a disgrace!

Darragh29 · 30-10-2008 11:41pm

luckat wrote: »

Fianna Fáil have made themselves look doltish and unable to plan for the future with their education cuts.

What would you do?

If it were my call, I'd start by instituting a set of superb scholarships - like the ones called after the seven 1916 leaders that go to the students who come first in the Leaving Cert.

I'd make sixteen sets of scholarships, calling them something like the Ireland Scholarships, and naming them for the sixteen leaders executed in 1916 - have the Tomás MacDonagh Science Scholarships, the Pádraig Pearse Arts Scholarships, the James Connolly Business Scholarships (heh!) and so on.

Not just one scholarship for each, but maybe 500 of each, which would be competitive, and won by hard work and talent.

This would ensure that talented people could get a university education - some of the scholarships would fund a primary degree, and some postgraduate work, and they would pay for everything: fees, books, food, lodgings, walking-around money - but it would satisfy those who think education isn't a right.

Here's what I'd do with education if I was Minister Twat O' Thief, TD...

(1) 3rd Level fees, you pay FULL fee's directly to the college. When you pass each year, you get a refund from the Dept. of Education... This would save approximately 50% of the 3rd level capitation budgetary provision, assuming a drop out rate of 1 in 2 on graduation day and nobody could protest against it because it is simply as fair a deal as you can get. If you put the graft in and get on with the job, you have free fees, if you arse around, you'll end up losing money.

(2) If a child cannot speak English as a basic language, then the parents should be charged for bringing a child who cannot speak English, up to the required standard level of competence so that they can be educated within the education system. We obviously can't be all things to all people here, so we need to draw the line somewhere.

(3) Make teachers holidays the same as everyone else's. This would allow the same amount of teaching hours to be done by substantially less teachers.

Trotter · 30-10-2008 11:57pm

Darragh29 wrote: »

This would allow the same amount of teaching hours to be done by substantially less teachers.

How would that work on lets say, a 5th class of 30 pupils, 6 of which are learning English, 2 of which have special learning needs?

I don't see the benefit of putting children into the class every day of the year except weekends plus 22 days holidays.

I'm interested in seeing how the more teaching hours, less teachers idea works.

In general, what I really think is the general underlying current here, is that people look at teachers and think.. They have more holidays than me and I don't like that. I think that a number of people want their children "minded" and educated, so packing them off to school to be minded during the summer is a winning idea. I disagree.

I also think that some people hated their time in school, and to get back at the teachers they had, they take it out on today's teachers. Theres lazy people in every job, we're not all like that.

This budget has unearthed the disrespect that some people have for the teaching profession which is outdated, and based on people's experiences from years ago.

Years ago classes were packed. Children often hated school. They grew up, hated teachers, and when the bubble burst, saw screwing teachers wages and time off as the way to get back at them and fix the economy.. and the government decided to increase class sizes, and they became packed... and.. back to phase 1.

implausible · 31-10-2008 12:42am

Trotter wrote: »

This demonstration is about teachers fighting for children's rights.

agree 100% but try telling the country that! All they hear is that teachers are whinging again. Last night's protest was not about teachers' pay, but about the education of kids. January is going to bring mayhem. Shane Ross said on Newstalk today that the teachers were 'overegging the pudding' and that it wasn't going to be that bad; he and the government obviously have no idea how schools are run and think that the figures are opinion, not fact

Darragh29 · 31-10-2008 12:58am

Trotter wrote: »

I'm interested in seeing how the more teaching hours, less teachers idea works.

It's 3rd class maths Trotter. If we have x number of teachers working normal working hours, with regard to the whole calender year, then we will need less teachers, compared to y number of teachers working a whole calender less five months holidays.

Trotter wrote: »

In general, what I really think is the general underlying current here, is that people look at teachers and think.. They have more holidays than me and I don't like that. I think that a number of people want their children "minded" and educated, so packing them off to school to be minded during the summer is a winning idea. I disagree.

I also think that some people hated their time in school, and to get back at the teachers they had, they take it out on today's teachers. Theres lazy people in every job, we're not all like that.

This budget has unearthed the disrespect that some people have for the teaching profession which is outdated, and based on people's experiences from years ago.

Years ago classes were packed. Children often hated school. They grew up, hated teachers, and when the bubble burst, saw screwing teachers wages and time off as the way to get back at them and fix the economy.. and the government decided to increase class sizes, and they became packed... and.. back to phase 1.

Trotter, teachers have a handy number, they have excellent pay, excellent promotional opportunities, the holidays they have are not just a perk anymore in the climate of today, they are now a cost that we cannot afford to pay for.

Also, the refusal of your number to weed out the useless is no longer acceptable to people who these days now expect basic accountability in the workplace and performance reviews consistent with what private sector taxpayers have to engage with...

One thing about this recession, is that the people are cranky and the last of the handy numbers will be "with O Leary, in the grave", by the time this recession is done and dusted...

Darragh29 · 31-10-2008 1:04am

deemark wrote: »

agree 100% but try telling the country that! All they hear is that teachers are whinging again. Last night's protest was not about teachers' pay, but about the education of kids. January is going to bring mayhem. Shane Ross said on Newstalk today that the teachers were 'overegging the pudding' and that it wasn't going to be that bad; he and the government obviously have no idea how schools are run and think that the figures are opinion, not fact

It is in me ar*e. It is about what has been running this country for years, VESTED INTERESTS. That's all grand when Bertie Ahern is the gaffer and we are p*ssing money all over the place and taxpayers are paying for industrial peace, but there is a new show in town now.

Another load of nonsense I've been listening to this week, TRAVELLER'S GRANTS for education. I'm not anti-traveller, I have friends who are travellers, but I know that most of the travellers I know are driving around in 08 vans. I don't know many people with brand new vans every year, so why are we paying educational grants to schools for people who seem to be able to afford brand new vans ever year???

Educational cuts

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