OECD finds "culture of secrecy" in Irish education

Permabear

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Einhard

There's no doubt in my mind that unions have stood in the way of reforms of the education sector over the years, and by doing so did teachers a grave disservice.

However, I'm not sure how much transparency one can reasonably expect. I'm studying for a PGDE (teaching qualification) at the moment, and I had to find a school for placement. I had a number of interviews, before each of which I downloaded the Whole School Evaluation from the Department of Education's website.

I don;t know if you're familar with these, but they amount to a detailed and comprehensive review of all aspects of the school. Inspectors arrive in the school and observe classes over a set period of time, and then draw up their report. It's then posted on online for all to access.

This process is relatively new so not all schools have been evaluated, and that may be a legitimate cause for concern. That aside though, I fail to see how, with sucha comprehensive and open process in place, the OECD could come to their conclusions.

Einhard

Just to add: I;d have no problems with league tables if I thought they were a valid method of assessment. But they are not, and have been shown to be a poor evaluative process. In England for example, there is an increasing problem with schools pressuring students into doing "easy" subjects in order to do well in the tables. The problem then is, that many of the students cannot access the higher education courses of their choice because they don't have the requistite skills or subjects, despite their greats results. So league tables, in this instance at least, actively subvert the educational process.

There are many reasons for falling literacy standards, and falling standards in primary education may well be a major factor- but I have yet to see evidence to sustain this. There is certainly a case to be made that children are far less likely to be interested in reading than previously. A love of reading is crucial to developing literacy, but there's not much a teacher can do if a student's only interaction with literature is in class.

cavedave

Einhard

Just to add: I;d have no problems with league tables if I thought they were a valid method of assessment. But they are not, and have been shown to be a poor evaluative process. In England for example, there is an increasing problem with schools pressuring students into doing "easy" subjects in order to do well in the tables.

If you release the results of all subjects this sort of shenanigans are very hard to run. There is a serious conflict of interests in one argument I have sometimes heard against releasing school results "We cannot release maths results as people are too bad at maths to understand them" which coming from the people who teach maths is odd.

This IT article gives another look at the great stagnation in Irish education

In the past decade, Britain increased school funding by 21 per cent and the US by 37 per cent, yet standards have slipped in both countries.

In Ireland’s case, the result has been even worse. In the past decade, funding per student has been increased in real terms by 61 per cent, yet performance has decreased by 15 per cent.

HellFireClub

Einhard wrote: »

There's no doubt in my mind that unions have stood in the way of reforms of the education sector over the years, and by doing so did teachers a grave disservice.

However, I'm not sure how much transparency one can reasonably expect. I'm studying for a PGDE (teaching qualification) at the moment, and I had to find a school for placement. I had a number of interviews, before each of which I downloaded the Whole School Evaluation from the Department of Education's website.

I don;t know if you're familar with these, but they amount to a detailed and comprehensive review of all aspects of the school. Inspectors arrive in the school and observe classes over a set period of time, and then draw up their report. It's then posted on online for all to access.

This process is relatively new so not all schools have been evaluated, and that may be a legitimate cause for concern. That aside though, I fail to see how, with sucha comprehensive and open process in place, the OECD could come to their conclusions.

It's not just in education, the whole country is completely messed up because of inefficiencies everywhere, in local authorities, government departments, state agencies and quango's, absolutely everywhere.

#15

Once again PB, it would be useful if you specified the level you are talking about.
I will assume secondary, since primary teachers are subject to a rigorous probation year that includes three unannounced inspections, as well as WSEs and incidental inspections thereafter.


An increase in inspections in secondary schools is certainly needed.
The publication of school data would also be a step forward, although creating league tables would be a ridiculous move and would be counter-productive in identifying good and bad teachers. The ''culture of secrecy'' seems to be from the IT, and not from the OECD. I would say it is not so much secrecy as just sheer unaccountability.

To add a general point on inspections at both levels, but especially primary;
The random distribution of these inspections needs to be addressed, and the inspectorate must come up with more coherent evaluation criteria. At the minute, different inspectors demand different things. No one knows what level of preparation is ''satisfactory''. Some inspectors want a weekly plan that is two pages long - others want one that is sixteen pages long. A teacher doing 12 pages might be considered unprepared and another doing 3 pages might be considered to have done adequate preparation. To truly benefit from evaluations, teachers and inspectors must be clear on what is needed and expected.


The spending point is not really relevant - Irish education has been underfunded for years (as a % of GDP) so one year above average is nowhere near to addressing the previous deficit.

Also from that IT article:

On maths, the international agency says shortcomings in teacher-training and in the allocation of teaching time may be penalising learning outcomes.

Primary teachers, who teach all subjects to their pupils, were found to vary widely in their mathematical knowledge.

At post-primary level, almost half (48 per cent) of the mathematics teachers did not have a mathematics teaching qualification, with an even higher figure (60 per cent) among teachers aged 35 or under.

1) This is a welcome recommendation. The allocation of curriculum time has been the elephant in the room for years. This is partly linked to the patronage issue, so it will be interesting to see what happens there.

2) The entry requirements should be much higher with regard to Maths. Particularly when Irish has such a high requirement. I think there may be moves afoot to raise the Maths requirement, but it's long overdue.

3) This is a shocking statistic, the DES must have been asleep at the wheel for the last ten years. The DES should never have sanctioned the employment of Maths teachers if they are not qualified to teach Maths. It's ridiculous. And then they will carry out reports as to why numeracy scores have declined. You couldn't make it up.

Einhard

cavedave wrote: »

If you release the results of all subjects this sort of shenanigans are very hard to run. There is a serious conflict of interests in one argument I have sometimes heard against releasing school results "We cannot release maths results as people are too bad at maths to understand them" which coming from the people who teach maths is odd.

TBH, I've never had that reasoning out forward. It doesn't take great comprehension abilities to understand a comparative table.

This IT article gives another look at the great stagnation in Irish education

I think that all the focus on the fall in literacy levels in particular ignores the huge role that parents have to play in developing these skills. In the class of thirty first years that I'm currently teaching, perhaps 3 read on a regular basis. I had to set up a class devoted purely to quiet reading to remedy this. Such a situation would have been inconceivable 20 years ago. Of course, not every one read then, but far more young people did than seems to be the case today. Reading for pleasure is the single best way of improving literacy- and it has to be inculcated and facilitated in the home. My library class is a mere 40 minutes a week. That can't possibly remedy a decade's worth of neglect of reading skills.

I'd also point out that far more is being taught these days in primary schools. When I was at tha stage, we focused on a few core subjects, and religion. Now they cover far more. Science and foreign languages are taught in most schools, and music and other subjects are given far greater prominence. This obviously reduces the time that can be spent covering the basics. I'm not trying to exempt teachers from all criticism here, but merely pointing out that there are many factors which the OECD ignore.

Incidentally, the OECD are not unbiased when it comes to education, and they shouldn't be read as such. They view education solely from the point of view of economics- others might look at it in a different light.

Permabear

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conorhal

Nobody seems to want to mention the elephant in the room, but, with 20% of primary school children born to foreign nationals for whom english is not their first language, and some schools in North Dublin boasting that they represent 34 different nationalities (it must be like trying to teach in the tower of Babel), while at the same time you have special needs assistants and language support teacher numbers being slashing to almost nothing, how are these results any kind of surprise?

amen

This is a shocking statistic, the DES must have been asleep at the wheel for the last ten years. The DES should never have sanctioned the employment of Maths teachers if they are not qualified to teach Maths

You don't need a Maths Degree to teach maths. I have an B.Sc (Hons) in Applied Physics and I have a lot of Maths (could even be more than an Arts Graduate with a 3 Maths option) but according to the teaching council I am not qualified enough to teach maths but if I had gone to Trinity and studied Civil Engineering after 3 years I could have got a pass maths degree and then my Civil Eng in 4th year yet my Maths Degree would be ok to teach maths?

I've meet teachers with Maths degrees who can't teach, have no passion for the subject and can't explain why/what you do with the Maths i.e why theorems are important, why set theory is important, what you can with matrices, calculus etc

ardmacha

If you're going to talk about education spending as a percentage of GDP, at least use figures from 2011, not 2007.

You probably shouldn't use GDP at all in this, rather GNI or some such, but neither 2007 nor 2011 are typical years. A longer term perspective is needed.

Permabear

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Einhard

amen wrote: »

You don't need a Maths Degree to teach maths. I have an B.Sc (Hons) in Applied Physics and I have a lot of Maths (could even be more than an Arts Graduate with a 3 Maths option) but according to the teaching council I am not qualified enough to teach maths but if I had gone to Trinity and studied Civil Engineering after 3 years I could have got a pass maths degree and then my Civil Eng in 4th year yet my Maths Degree would be ok to teach maths?

I've meet teachers with Maths degrees who can't teach, have no passion for the subject and can't explain why/what you do with the Maths i.e why theorems are important, why set theory is important, what you can with matrices, calculus etc

This is definitely true. My brother is an electrical engineer who's excellent at maths. A few years back he was considering becoming a teacher, and to my mind would have made a great one. But he was told that his degree wasn't recognised for the purposes of the hDip. And yet there are people in schools with only a basic competence in maths, and no qualifications, taking honours classes. It's ridiculous.

nesf

Einhard wrote: »

I think that all the focus on the fall in literacy levels in particular ignores the huge role that parents have to play in developing these skills.

Agreed. You either have a home with plenty of books of interest to the child or you don't. You can't expect your child to have good English skills if you don't foster a reading habit in them from a very young age. The main reason I've a passion for reading is that I was fed a constant diet of books from as soon as I could read because my mother always found a bit of money to buy me a book. We're doing the exact same thing with our kids and they've a substantial enough selection of books at their disposal by this stage and it's going to stay that way.

Edit: A national book program, providing books to young kids would be something I'd support. Means test it or have it as part of the money for school books scheme or whatever.

nesf

amen wrote: »

You don't need a Maths Degree to teach maths. I have an B.Sc (Hons) in Applied Physics and I have a lot of Maths (could even be more than an Arts Graduate with a 3 Maths option) but according to the teaching council I am not qualified enough to teach maths but if I had gone to Trinity and studied Civil Engineering after 3 years I could have got a pass maths degree and then my Civil Eng in 4th year yet my Maths Degree would be ok to teach maths?

I've meet teachers with Maths degrees who can't teach, have no passion for the subject and can't explain why/what you do with the Maths i.e why theorems are important, why set theory is important, what you can with matrices, calculus etc

It's pretty simple really. Some degrees have a substantial mathematics content. Physics, Elec Eng and what have you. These degrees allow you to go straight into a Maths or Applied Maths post grad program if you so wished. They're perfectly acceptable for a Maths teacher to hold. No sensible person would argue otherwise once they knew the level of maths involved. A regular Physics degree in universities anyway will be taught almost entirely through maths.

Mr.Micro

There is a cozy relationship between the DOE and teachers, both effectively do as they like, and any real coming together is only at the Leaving Cert exams. 3 months summer holidays still plus all the extra days, half terms now as well, inset days. Mention any type of reform and the teachers unions react vehemently. No league tables, no inspection results published, no wonder the rot has set in many schools. Teaching maths by anyone and everyone and science is a no no in most cases.

Sadly this is not good enough now, and employers want better. Overhauling an education system that is ok in parts but needs improvement, and could do a whole lot better, will be resisted by the very people employed to educate.