This just takes the biscuit

delta_bravo · 29-09-2010 9:51pm #1

The government has been harking on about our "smart economy" and "knowledge economy" and have shown that its all bluster with the lack of ICT resources recently in schools however this article just is another slap in the face for qualified teachers:

Link

Fury as unqualified teachers get legal right to give classes

TEACHERS were last night furious over government plans to give unqualified personnel a legal right to teach in schools.

The Government insists it will only occur in certain exceptional and limited circumstances -- and only in consultation with management, unions and the Teaching Council, which maintains a register.

But INTO general secretary Sheila Nunan said that, given the numbers of teachers unemployed or working elsewhere, it was astonishing that Education Minister Mary Coughlan should even contemplate the employment of non-teachers.

"It is completely unacceptable for a non-teacher to be employed in schools when highly qualified teachers are seeking work," said Ms Nunan.

She said the minister should be making provision for the establishment of supply panels of qualified teachers so that every teacher absence was covered by a fully qualified teacher.

"Children are entitled to be taught by a teacher," she added. "A person with no teaching qualification is not a teacher."

However, the Department of Education said that, despite large number of new teachers graduating each year, the reality facing schools was that it was not always possible to engage a registered teacher due to many factors, including increases in population and the allocation of additional posts.

Surprise

This explanation caused some surprise last night as it was not clear how the allocation of additional posts would result in schools not being able to find qualified teachers.

Sources pointed out that the number of unqualified teachers, especially at primary level, had come down in recent years and schools were encouraged to hire qualified teachers. Where unqualified people were employed it was often for short periods in emergency situations.

The provision to allow unqualified teachers legal entitlement to teach is contained in a draft Education (Amendment) Bill 2010. The bill also gives a legislative framework to allow vocational education committees to become involved in primary education provision.

This was welcomed by the Irish Vocational Education Association, whose general secretary Michael Moriarty said it would give VECs the flexibility to become patrons of existing national schools.

But Mr Moriarty also expressed dismay over the decision by the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) to retain its directives on meetings after school hours and to ban discussion on the reallocation of vacant middle-management posts.

Talks start today with the INTO and tomorrow with the ASTI on the implementation of the Croke Park agreement but the TUI is excluded because of its refusal to life the directives.

The union had suggested talks through the normal industrial-relations machinery but this was rejected by the Department of Education. It is understood the department wants talks to conclude by the mid-term break, with the proposed changes of an extra hour per week and greater flexibility introduced from November.

This is a joke. This country is a joke.

Nead21 · 30-09-2010 11:27am

This is just unbelieveable, its like a step back to the seventies. The government goes on about how student results are not up to standard or dont compare with European counterparts, and yet they want to make it "legal" to hire unqualified teachers to make this somehow better???

I'm all for the encouragement of business people/other professional returning to train as teachers as it provides students with a more rounded teacher who has experienced the working world outside the educational bubble IMHO, however this is ridiculous.

maybe i'll walk into a garda station and demand to be allowed to arrest and interrogate people!! :rolleyes:

i wonder why ive paid €8000 to complete my PGDE....

Lord TSC · 30-09-2010 1:09pm

maybe i'll walk into a garda station and demand to be allowed to arrest and interrogate people!!

Nah, I'd rather try my hand at being a doctor. Sure, how hard can it be....

sitstill · 30-09-2010 4:16pm

Sickening. That loan I got for my PGDE was clearly a waste of money.

delta_bravo · 30-09-2010 5:25pm

I have emailed several FF TDs and University Senators about this and they said they will get back to me on this. I will let ye know what responses I get

Toto Wolfcastle · 30-09-2010 5:32pm

The Teaching Council is already pretty useless but with this ruling there is no longer any point to them. What is the point in teachers registering if unqualified teachers can be employed?

dambarude · 30-09-2010 5:46pm

The one place where the Government can make a bit difference, at no cost, and they manage to screw it up.

I wish I could say I'm surprised.

evolving_doors · 30-09-2010 6:33pm

Ah well at least we don't have to register with the teaching council anymore so.
Cheers minister

What next,,, un-qualified politicians working in the Dail..hhmmmmm

Bazzo · 30-09-2010 6:39pm

I'm not a teacher or anything but I was under the impression that there were already an overabundance of teachers(At least at secondary level)?

byhookorbycrook · 30-09-2010 6:44pm

Cheaper to pay untrained people..:mad::mad::mad:

Bazzo · 30-09-2010 6:50pm

Ah, I see, so...

However, the Department of Education said that, despite large number of new teachers graduating each year, the reality facing schools was that it was not always possible to engage a registered teacher due to many factors, including increases in population and the allocation of additional posts.

So is there any truth in this or is this just another one of the government's famous "opinions" (read: lies)?

Toto Wolfcastle · 30-09-2010 6:55pm

The government seem blissfully unaware of any facts relating to education in Ireland. My favourite was when then Minister for Education, Batt O' Keefe, urged those who had just received their LC results to apply for science courses on their CAO forms. I think he was unaware that they had submitted their final choices over a month earlier.

I find it hard to believe that schools find it difficult to get qualified teachers. I mean, obviously in rural areas it might be more difficult, but I find it hard to believe that every unemployed teacher is unwilling to apply for these jobs. That's the only way it could be true.

delta_bravo · 30-09-2010 8:39pm

I have gotten several replies from TDs and Senators including a detailed reply from some which was quite nice to see. The new section will replace the below section of the current bill:

30.—A person who is employed as a teacher in a recognised school but—
(a) is not a registered teacher, or
(b) is removed or suspended from the register under Part 5,
shall not be remunerated by the school in respect of his or her employment out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas.

To now give legal recognition to these people when there are thousands of unemployed teachers beggars belief

maynooth_rules · 30-09-2010 8:52pm

I don't know why this surprises people, it is typical of FF and it is just set up so certain people can look after other people. People in the know who have no qualification whatsoever will get into schools despite not having an idea how to teach the class. The number of qualified teachers I know that have no work, and the DOE come out with this quality line "the reality facing schools was that it was not always possible to engage a registered teacher due to many factors". that is complete and utter bull. I wish i had never wasted my time spending thousands to do the PGDE. Im reduced to going to England to get work, while this government gives the green light for non qualified people to teach. It is beyond a joke and i cannot describe my anger now

Dionysus · 30-09-2010 9:05pm

"However, the Department of Education said that, despite large number of new teachers graduating each year, the reality facing schools was that it was not always possible to engage a registered teacher due to many factors, including increases in population and the allocation of additional posts."

Just what the fúck do these shítehawks mean by this? My command of the English language is good. But last time I looked there were thousands of unemployed qualified teachers. And where are the Education spokespersons for the Blueshirts and Labour on this issue?

This defies belief. The government of this state is allowing hundreds of new teachers to spend millions of euros each year funding Education departments in various Irish universities in order to get their teaching qualification. When this teaching qualification is secured at the nominal cost of €6500 and a real cost of some €20,000 for that year, the Department of Education of this state say 'fúck it; let's give legal status to unqualified teachers!".

There isn't enough despair, and there aren't enough tears, to respond to this latest Irish government policy.

Roro4Brit · 30-09-2010 9:14pm

This is balls. I was planning on going back to do the HDip in 2011 but now what's the point? I, as one of the beneficiaries of this new legislation being not yet qualified and all, can see that it is absurd. Yes I've a BA, an MSc and work experience but I'd be first to admit that this in NO way qualifies me to enter a classroom a begin to teach a class. There is no logic I can see behind this move by the gov...it really has left me scratching my head.

If my plans to go the teaching route do come to fruition I'd still undergo all the training I so far expected to have to do. Taking a job as a teacher and robbing a childs chance to a proper education is not something I could live with.

Lord TSC · 30-09-2010 9:16pm

The sad thing is though that they'll get away with this. Cause lets face it, the unemployed teachers can't really strike. And there's no get up and go in the Irish anymore. If there was, we would have been protesting about far bigger injustices caused by the government before now

Nead21 · 01-10-2010 3:52pm

you can already register with the teaching council as an unqualified teacher, so exactly why are we paying €90 per year to have our qualification recognised by this sham of an organisation?

the TC was established in order to ensure that teachers were teaching subjects that they are qualified to teach....now they are registering unqualified teachers and plan to allow unqualified people to teach. is that not completely undoing what the TC were set up for?

does that make the PGDE completely unless then? where do i apply for a refund?? :mad:

delta_bravo · 02-10-2010 1:02am

Heres what I have heard so far:

Conor Lenihan (FF T.D.)

"Following on from your e-mail, we have made strong representations to the Minsiter for Education & Skills Mary Coughlan T.D.
We will revert to you as soon as possible"

Charlie O'Connor (F.F. T.D.)

"Thank you for your communication of yesterday's date, when I was pleased to hear from you.
I took careful note of your concerns regard the Education (Amendment) Bill 2010 and please be assured
of my interest.

I am pursuing this issue on your behalf and I will do all I can to help.

Please continue to feel free to call on me anytime."

Ronan Mullen (N.U.I. Senator)

"I will be glad to look into that and raise the matter"

Joe O'Toole (N.U.I. Senator)

I am aware of this Section and totally understand your concerns.

I have already raised the issue with the INTO and I will be raising the issues of your concern (and indeed many other training and qualified teachers) when the Bill comes before the Seanad.

Ivana Bacik (T.C.D. Senator)

Very detailed reply where Ivana found the previous bill that would be amended and said she would inquire as to why this was being changed and asked if she could forward my concerns on to Ruairi Quinn which I thought was very good.

David Norris (T.C.D. Senator)

No reply

Shane Ross (T.C.D. Senator)

No reply

Mary Coughlan

No reply

I will update if people reply to me in the meantime

Dionysus · 03-10-2010 5:14pm

delta_bravo wrote: »

Heres what I have heard so far:

Conor Lenihan (FF T.D.)

"Following on from your e-mail, we have made strong representations to the Minsiter for Education & Skills Mary Coughlan T.D.
We will revert to you as soon as possible"

Charlie O'Connor (F.F. T.D.)

"Thank you for your communication of yesterday's date, when I was pleased to hear from you.
I took careful note of your concerns regard the Education (Amendment) Bill 2010 and please be assured
of my interest.

I am pursuing this issue on your behalf and I will do all I can to help.

Please continue to feel free to call on me anytime."

Ronan Mullen (N.U.I. Senator)

"I will be glad to look into that and raise the matter"

Joe O'Toole (N.U.I. Senator)

I am aware of this Section and totally understand your concerns.

I have already raised the issue with the INTO and I will be raising the issues of your concern (and indeed many other training and qualified teachers) when the Bill comes before the Seanad.

Ivana Bacik (T.C.D. Senator)

Very detailed reply where Ivana found the previous bill that would be amended and said she would inquire as to why this was being changed and asked if she could forward my concerns on to Ruairi Quinn which I thought was very good.

David Norris (T.C.D. Senator)

No reply

Shane Ross (T.C.D. Senator)

No reply

Mary Coughlan

No reply

I will update if people reply to me in the meantime

Good work, Delta. I've contacted Fergus O Dowd, the Fine Gael spokesperson on education. Will update likewise.

ytareh · 04-10-2010 10:36pm

No reply from David Norris ...disappointing(may even affect my voting for him as prospective Presidential candidate ...Shane Ross ...not that surprised -he's massively anti teacher / pro capitalist .And the other one, Mary Coughlan ?Isnt she minister of some department or other ?What one is it now again!?
My Lord the last 3 or 4 Education Ministers really have been a joke ...in fact they seem to chop and change portfolios like kids playing some kind of a game .

delta_bravo · 05-10-2010 7:14am

David Norris replied on Sunday actually. Sorry i forgot to put it up

Thank you for alerting me to the situation which is indeed a worrying one.

maynooth_rules · 06-10-2010 5:05pm

I contacted the TD that I voted for in the last election, Green Partys Mary White. She has been at my door before playing thh card that as a former teacher she understands the complaints I have in the past

My first email to Mary White was just asking how she felt about the issue and would she do anything about something that is grossly unfair.

Here reply back

Dear Maynooth Rules,

Thank you for your email and for your support.

Sorry to hear that you are finding it difficult to find work as a teacher and that you are having to move to England.

The Education (Amendment) Bill 2010 published by the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills, Mary Coughlan TD, brought in a number of new measures designed to reflect the changing shape of Irish society which is placing new and complex demands on our education system in responding to the diverse needs of our communities.
Included in the changes were ‘arrangements for the employment, in certain exceptional and limited circumstances, of persons who are not registered teachers under the Teaching Council Act 2001.'

The Bill provides for the employment, in certain exceptional and limited circumstances, of persons who are not registered teachers following consultation with management, unions and the Teaching Council. The reality facing schools is that it is not always possible to engage a registered teacher due to many factors, e.g. geographical, increases in population and allocation of additional posts, despite the maintenance of a high level of output of graduates.

Please note that it is only in ‘certain exceptional and limited circumstances’ and it is not, by any means, the norm.
In publishing the Bill, the Tánaiste made it clear that ‘the core objective is to maintain the focus on providing the best education for all our children in a time of increasing diversity of demand and challenging economic conditions.'

I must say I found this to be quite a poor reply from someone who, as a former teacher, I felt might understand a bit more all of our grievances with this measure. I just forwarded this email to her and am awaiting a reply

Dear Mary,
Thank you very much for getting back to me. I have to ask though, as a former teacher, do you condone employing non qualified people in a job while there are hundreds of unemployed teachers in this country. If you were to get sick, would you be happy with an unqualified nurse looking after you. This is a disgraceful amendment to be allowed and I hope that you as a former teacher understand the extreme anger felt by me and other unemployed teachers. I have traveled for interviews as far afield as Donegal and Cork. I would move anywhere in the 26 counties to get teaching work, so to hear that a major reason for this amendment is geographical issues is hard to take. Can you please please try to encourage the Mary Coughlan to ask the Teaching Council to set up a registrar for all registered teachers that are out of work. Then whenever a principal needs a teacher at short notice they will just have to log onto the teaching councils website, check the registrar and find a teacher looking for work in their area. Would this system not make a lot more sense that bringing in this amendment which is open to nepotism and which is a slap in the face to all those teachers desperately looking for work.

Kind Regards,

Maynooth Rules

delta_bravo · 06-10-2010 8:28pm

Further updates here.

Got a call from the office of Ronan Mullen, he left a voicemail and said he would be placing an objection to this section but was unsure when this bill would be actually brought to the oireachtas

Got a great reply from Ivana Bacik who I think has been very helpful about this, she forwarded on my issue to Ruairi Quinn who brought the issue up of teacher unemployment in the Dail a week ago

Ivana Bacik wrote:

The Bill also contains a section which proposes to allow unqualified teachers to continue to work in schools. It is counter-productive to introduce these changes while there are hundreds of qualified teachers who cannot find any work in our education system.

As the Bill proposes to make a number of changes to various, unrelated, sections of the Education Act 1998, the Labour Party will consider each section of the Bill on its own merits . We do not know yet when the Bill will be debated at Second Stage in the Dáil.

Ruairi Quinn TD highlighted the difficulties facing qualified teachers who cannot find work in the Dáil during Oral Questions on September 29th 2010. I attach a transcript of the Dáíl debate.

The Labour Party is committed to introducing a new employment scheme for unemployed Teacher Training Graduates so they can gain practical work experience and provide additional support staff to the education sector.

We will be submitting amendments to the Education (Amendment) Bill 2010 at Committee Stage which will remove the changes to the Teaching Council Act 2001.

I hope the above is helpful, , and thanks again for your query. Very best wishes Ivana

wingnut · 09-10-2010 3:09pm

+ 1 TC is just another way to waste of government money. Nice idea but incompetent execution.

If I was cynical I would suggest this could be a handy way for FF old boys who find themselves out of work from other sectors to take a shortcut to teaching and ride out the recession.

With all the supposed checks and balances of qualifications - there are still 'teaching jobs for the boys'.

While there are fantastic teachers in Ireland, there are a lot of cowboys in the system too, both qualified and unqualified, and the system allows for this.

I registered with the teaching council in Wales, they are efficient and helpful. In contrast dealing with the Irish Teaching Council would never instilled me with confidence. In the UK ambitious teachers can now obtain chartered teacher status which involved continuous assessment and producing schemes of work, papers etc.

EoghanRua · 09-10-2010 10:00pm

delta_bravo wrote: »

Got a great reply from Ivana Bacik who I think has been very helpful about this, she forwarded on my issue to Ruairi Quinn who brought the issue up of teacher unemployment in the Dail a week ago

The problem with Ivana Bacik's reply is that like much of what the Labour Party is at at the minute it immediately curries favour with the sectional interest - who would not want extra support in the educational sector while keeping people off the dole? - yet it lacks any detail as to how it could possibly be funded at a time when it seems far more likely that education as well as every other sector will be the subject of more cuts in the years ahead.

EoghanRua · 09-10-2010 10:07pm

wingnut wrote: »

While there are fantastic teachers in Ireland, there are a lot of cowboys in the system too, both qualified and unqualified, and the system allows for this.

I registered with the teaching council in Wales, they are efficient and helpful. In contrast dealing with the Irish Teaching Council would never instilled me with confidence. In the UK ambitious teachers can now obtain chartered teacher status which involved continuous assessment and producing schemes of work, papers etc.

To be honest there's an element of the returned 'Yank' about this post - "everything is much better where I am".

I'd be surprised if there are not 'cowboys' in teaching in all countries. Human nature is universal.

Incidentally, what meaningful significance is there to 'chartered teacher status'? It sounds like something that if the TC in Ireland introduced they would be accused of creating an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy to justify their own existence.

A friend of mine taught in the UK for eleven years and he considered that there was far too much pointless paper pushing, report filling-out and assessment for the sake of it over there and now laments that we are heading in the same direction, so I'm not sure if it's Utopia across the pond either.

wingnut · 10-10-2010 11:59pm

EoghanRua wrote: »

To be honest there's an element of the returned 'Yank' about this post - "everything is much better where I am".

I'd be surprised if there are not 'cowboys' in teaching in all countries. Human nature is universal.

Incidentally, what meaningful significance is there to 'chartered teacher status'? It sounds like something that if the TC in Ireland introduced they would be accused of creating an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy to justify their own existence.

I've been teaching in Ireland a good many years now so I'm long returned. The point I was making with CTS is to recognise teachers who approach their job as a profession vs the teachers who just go through the motions.

CTS would be more meaningful than just being qualified, as it would demonstrate proficieny in the job as opposed to proficiency at the training level.

evolving_doors · 14-10-2010 8:41pm

wingnut wrote: »

I've been teaching in Ireland a good many years now so I'm long returned. The point I was making with CTS is to recognise teachers who approach their job as a profession vs the teachers who just go through the motions.

CTS would be more meaningful than just being qualified, as it would demonstrate proficieny in the job as opposed to proficiency at the training level.

It's a bit of a wishey washey statement though as Eoghan Rua pointed out. Why the big hullabaloo about 'bad' teachers, leave that rabble rousing to joe duffy.

In reality who's going sit in on a class and measure professionalism or 'going through the motions' and then on that observation hand someone their p45!!!

Dionysus · 03-11-2010 12:16pm

No response from Fergus O Dowd, the Fine Gael spokesperson on Education, yet. Very unimpressed (even if he's still a million time better than Brian Hayes)

iona_buss · 04-11-2010 8:42pm

With the increase in college fees as well what's the point getting fully qualified? Nothing surprises me anymore. Really sick of that 90 euro fee now.

This just takes the biscuit

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