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Teachers on the doss!

  • 20-04-2009 01:32PM
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,207 ✭✭✭


    This story is from the Sunday world so it may not be true..........

    I know theres another teacher bashing thread in after hours but I think this point needs to be looked at seperatly (if true)

    If you(reader of this thread) know its bull then by all means point it.
    STATS A LOAD OF BULL***T

    RATIO: Facts don’t lie

    RATIO: Facts don’t lie
    IN 2004/2005 - the last year for which there are statistics on the Central Statistics Office website - there were 11,553 full-time secondary teachers in Ireland.

    There were also 1,653 part-time secondary teachers, but let's not worry about them for the moment.

    That same year, 2004/2005, there were 185,026 secondary school students.

    So what does this matter?

    Doss
    Well, if you divide the number of teachers into the number of pupils, you get one teacher per 16 students.

    The same year, there were 26,282 primary school teachers on the payroll of the Department of Education. And there were 455,782 students.

    Which is one teacher for every 17 pupils.

    So how come the teacher to pupil ratio is claimed to be twice those figures?

    Because if all those teachers are full-time, some of them are clearly on the doss half the time

    http://www.sundayworld.com/columnists/paddy-murray.php

    If you consider male teachers are paid an average €64,000 and females €56,000 (different issue) then its a hell of a lot of pay for the teachers who dont actually teach!


«13

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,563 ✭✭✭connundrum


    Thats frickin amazing!

    There's probably an explaination, if not, there'll be one made up.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 633 ✭✭✭dublinario


    This story is from the Sunday world so it may not be true..........

    I know theres another teacher bashing thread in after hours but I think this point needs to be looked at seperatly (if true)

    If you(reader of this thread) know its bull then by all means point it.



    http://www.sundayworld.com/columnists/paddy-murray.php

    If you consider male teachers are paid an average €64,000 and females €56,000 (different issue) then its a hell of a lot of pay for the teachers who dont actually teach!

    As a teacher who generally skives off work and is paid to do nothing, I find this offensive. As a white man, I also find the implication (subtle, but evident) that this is a 'white problem', utterly racist. Reported to mods.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,255 ✭✭✭✭The_Minister


    *Dreams of the good old days in primary school, when the teacher ran a courier company from the classroom*


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,020 ✭✭✭Ardscoil Ris


    Who cares? Teachers aren't real people anyway.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 633 ✭✭✭dublinario


    Who cares? Teachers aren't real people anyway.

    Agreed. They're amphibious creatures, primarily water-based. Hence the gills behind their buttocks.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,178 ✭✭✭✭ArmaniJeanss


    Figures can be skewed by the presence of specialist teachers.
    Lets say you have a primary school of 300 pupils in 10 classrooms. Average 30.

    But there is also a full time PE teacher, full time art teacher, full time music teacher and Full Time principal, the first 3 take each class for a couple of hours each week.

    In therory the average is now 300 / 14 = 21.

    However for any class that a pupil is in there is still an average of 30 pupils.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,048 ✭✭✭BobTheBeat


    dublinario wrote: »
    Agreed. They're amphibious creatures, primarily water-based. Hence the gills behind their buttocks.

    Error on your part sir, those are organic usb ports.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 8,632 ✭✭✭darkman2


    So "dublinario" - you're a teacher? That's nice. What are doing on here at 2:55pm on a Monday afternoon if you don't mind us taxpayers asking of course?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 633 ✭✭✭dublinario


    darkman2 wrote: »
    So "dublinario" - you're a teacher? That's nice. What are doing on here at 2:55pm on a Monday afternoon if you don't mind us taxpayers asking of course?

    Ah, I sent the rugrats down to the shop to get me 40 Johnny Blue. To be honest, I'm starting to get worried about them. I sent them yesterday. Any minute now, queue the drama queen parents: "blah blah blah, my 8 year old child didn't come home from school yesterday, whinge moan whinge."


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,476 ✭✭✭Mr.Lizard


    Just curious but is Paddy Murray a journalist or just some madman who shouts random stuff which the Sunday World write down and put in their paper? :confused:

    I only ask because Murrays 'writings' reminds me this one looper we have on the bus home who dresses like a fisherman in the middle of summer and walks up and down the upper aisle waving his hands like a spastick and shouting random stuff like the contents of that 'article'.


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  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,647 Mod ✭✭✭✭Robbo


    Mr.Lizard wrote: »
    Just curious is Paddy Murray a journalist or just some madman who shouts random stuff which the Sunday World write down and put in their paper? :confused:
    The Sunday World is the print equivalent of AH. Through the genius of division, he's formulated a robust hypothesis which I'm sure will stand any rigorous scrutiny. Such is the journalistic integrity and graft that goes into a 150 word article in a newspaper whose average readers could not be trusted to sit the right way around on a toilet seat.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,346 ✭✭✭✭ejmaztec


    Robbo wrote: »
    The Sunday World is the print equivalent of AH. Through the genius of division, he's formulated a robust hypothesis which I'm sure will stand any rigorous scrutiny. Such is the journalistic integrity and graft that goes into a 150 word article in a newspaper whose average readers could not be trusted to sit the right way around on a toilet seat.

    I think that he's proven that although there appear to be 3 million teachers per pupil, none of the teachers (i.e. 1750%) ever taught maths, especially Paddy Murray's.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 38,227 ✭✭✭✭Guy:Incognito


    Figures can be skewed by the presence of specialist teachers.
    Lets say you have a primary school of 300 pupils in 10 classrooms. Average 30.

    But there is also a full time PE teacher, full time art teacher, full time music teacher and Full Time principal, the first 3 take each class for a couple of hours each week.

    In therory the average is now 300 / 14 = 21.

    However for any class that a pupil is in there is still an average of 30 pupils.

    A primary school with seperate Art, PE and Music teachers? My teachers in primary school were my teachers for everythign we did in school. This was in a well off area of the soutside of Dublin, not somewhere underpriveledged.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,094 ✭✭✭✭javaboy


    Robbo wrote: »
    The Sunday World is the print equivalent of AH.

    I like to think that despite the fact that posts are not pre-moderated, we still have better editorial standards here.


    On topic: Lies, damn lies and statistics as usual. The interpretation in that "article" assume that any time not spent in class for a teacher is doss time. If that were true, nothing would get corrected, no lessons/homework/tests etc. would be prepared.*

    The simple answer is that the average class size is around 30. So yes some of the full time teachers are not strictly "teaching" at all times. Big whoop. They haven't stumbled across the secret of life, the universe and everything here. They've just done some basic maths and jumped to a big wrong conclusion. Well done Sunday World. You've done it again.



    *Yeah I know some teachers do spend that time dossing but the same can be said of any job.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,110 ✭✭✭Aodan83


    I know it says there are 17 pupils for each teacher, but in my sisters class,in primary school, there are 35 kids. Not to mention that the school, according to "the department" isn't big enough to qualify for another teacher, so one of the classes has to be split in half. Assuming your statistics are correct, I'd like to know where the schools that bring the student:teacher ratio to 17:1 are, because I haven't a clue!!
    A lot of primary schools do have particular PE or music teachers. There are probably quite a few special needs assistants being lumped into those figures too.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,287 ✭✭✭✭ntlbell


    javaboy wrote: »
    I like to think that despite the fact that posts are not pre-moderated, we still have better editorial standards here.


    On topic: Lies, damn lies and statistics as usual. The interpretation in that "article" assume that any time not spent in class for a teacher is doss time. If that were true, nothing would get corrected, no lessons/homework/tests etc. would be prepared.*

    I dunno I see a fair few of them dossing around GAA grounds :cool:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 911 ✭✭✭994


    - Non-teaching principals
    - special needs teachers
    - learning support teachers
    - traveller teachers

    Class size =|= pupil teacher ratio. And I wonder how a primary school teacher is supposed to be "on the doss" (that's not even an idiom btw, "doss" is a verb).


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,166 ✭✭✭✭Zzippy


    Aodan83 wrote: »
    I know it says there are 17 pupils for each teacher, but in my sisters class,in primary school, there are 35 kids. Not to mention that the school, according to "the department" isn't big enough to qualify for another teacher, so one of the classes has to be split in half. Assuming your statistics are correct, I'd like to know where the schools that bring the student:teacher ratio to 17:1 are, because I haven't a clue!!
    A lot of primary schools do have particular PE or music teachers. There are probably quite a few special needs assistants being lumped into those figures too.

    Many rural schools have low pupil numbers but still have to have enough teachers so that junior infants classes aren't taught in the same classes as 6th class pupils. I visited a school last year to give a talk and there were 3 pupils in the school, they were the last 3 and the school was closing down when they went to secondary, they had 2 teachers. Bet they got a great education. I had 39 others in my class when I was in primary!

    ntlbell wrote: »
    I dunno I see a fair few of them dossing around GAA grounds :cool:

    When you say dossing, do you mean giving up their time outside of school to coach kids in the healthy pursuits of hurling or football? ;) Cos I know lots of teachers who do that, and I also know lots of other people who wouldn't bother their holes to do it. But teachers are dossers yeah? :rolleyes:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,287 ✭✭✭✭ntlbell


    Zzippy wrote: »

    When you say dossing, do you mean giving up their time outside of school to coach kids in the healthy pursuits of hurling or football? ;) Cos I know lots of teachers who do that, and I also know lots of other people who wouldn't bother their holes to do it. But teachers are dossers yeah? :rolleyes:

    no i mean busy taken half days etc from their own classes to go and watch kids playing ;)

    slight difference


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,339 ✭✭✭me-skywalker


    Q: How many Teachers does it take to change a lightbulb?
    A: Ten to have a staff meeting about it, One to consult the union about being paid more to do it, One to ask the nurses to do it.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,367 ✭✭✭Agamemnon


    Why does Paddy Murray start a new paragraph at the end of every sentence?

    Is it to take up space?

    Is it because he's mildly retarded?

    Or is it to disguise the fact

    that there is

    fuck all

    of worth

    in his columns?

    Why?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,368 ✭✭✭thelordofcheese


    Weepsie wrote: »
    paddy murray is a halfwit!

    And i think calling him a halfwit is an insult to the halfwit community.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,476 ✭✭✭Mr.Lizard


    And i think calling him a halfwit is an insult to the halfwit community.

    I'd rate him about an eightwit based on the evidence above.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 423 ✭✭chosen1


    Figures printed there are about secondary teachers. Secondary school students spend 28 hours in class every week while a teacher on full time hours only works 22. Would be a fair few on less than 22 as well so doing the straight maths like Paddy doesn't work out.

    Think the first problem for the OP was picking up the Sunday World, then the second one was opening it up to Paddy Murrays article.
    The last time I had the misfortune to read one of his rants he was on about why he laughed every time someone from England fails in sporting events and in the same article a week before lauding Man Utd. Best advice would be to never to even acknowledge that paper exists.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,649 ✭✭✭Catari Jaguar


    994 wrote: »
    - Non-teaching principals
    - special needs teachers
    - learning support teachers
    - traveller teachers

    Don't forget about the language support teacher and teh resource teachers and the HSCL officers.

    In inner city disadvantaged schools there is a 15:1 cap in Junior/senior infants. I had 11 children last year though (it's a small school). The kids were mostly foreign so I had a Language support teacher in for an hour a day. Four of the kids also went out to a learning support teacher for Reading Recovery.

    By that means... there is one teacher per 3.66 children!

    Do you understand the idiocy of that article now OP?


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 31,205 Mod ✭✭✭✭Insect Overlord


    Wow, I really can't wait to qualify now.
    Being a teacher just keeps getting easier!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 40 cool username


    Seriously we are in a recession caused by the teachers.... oh no we're not! So stop being stingy bast**ds and getting thick with people simply because they have jobs... Go pick on the bankers or politicians if you need a rant.


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 31,205 Mod ✭✭✭✭Insect Overlord


    Seriously we are in a recession caused by the teachers.... oh no we're not! So stop being stingy bast**ds and getting thick with people simply because they have jobs... Go pick on the bankers or politicians if you need a rant.

    Ok, take a deep breath, step away from your computer and get a glass of water. Once you've cooled down a bit, pour yourself a nice mug of tea, grab a biscuit, and come back when you've calmed down. Nobody in this thread is ranting.

    (except those justifiably ranting about that brutal excuse for a newspaper...)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 165 ✭✭Woger


    Paddy Murray; Ireland answer to Edward Woodward, with a stupid hat.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 40 cool username


    Sigh.. sorry combination of 30 four year olds, staying up last night to do term 3 planning and then finding out I missed a week and stressing about one little boy who thinks all letters have a "ssssss" sound, and another who doesn't seem to have picked up more english than the word "toilet" since starting school, and another who spent the day pretending to be a plane... saw another teacher-trashing tread and kinda lost it! But yes you are right... cups of tea should sort it out....


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