Resources For Education

Xenophile

Funds spent on Career Guidance, is it money well spent? or could the money be spent in a way that is of better benefit to society overall, say on disadvantaged or Deis schools for instance. Does it serve a purpose now to be spending scarce resources advising people about future careers where there is so little choice available? Is it now just another way of underpinning inequality in society. Is it now a luxury we now cannot afford ? Are not parents the best mentors anyway?

It is time we got real and admitted that certain past "luxuries" are no longer affordable" in our current economic situation and that is likely to be the case for years to come.

Having said the above, I wish students all the very best of good fortune in their choice of career and in their in their working lives and keep in mind your own instincts and intuition are often the most accurate indicators for following your total life experience.

"Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so" No such thing as success or failure".................in the end it' all only experience.

jimmycrackcorm

It's a long time since I was at school and maybe things have changed but I found the career guidance was utterly useless.

Xenophile

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

It's a long time since I was at school and maybe things have changed but I found the career guidance was utterly useless.

One of the reasons why I placed this post. Better ways to spend this money and Deis is one of these. To call a spade a spade........ career guidance does not deliver any kind of value for money in our school system.

SeaFields

I think that their position has become redundant owing to the internet and technology.

Students filling out a CAO form now can research any course in any college, institute or university in the country. They can also, by and large, speak to students of any course on internet forums such as boards.

If you went to my GC albeit not that long ago, in the late 90s, you left the office with a handful of leaflets that contained a few hundred words on a particular course and some nice pics of students in lab coats smiling. You certainly didn't get the full pros and cons from this literature. Nowadays you can go directly to the source.

I know the argument will come about that they do more than just give advice on third level and careers, but I see them being outdated solely from the position of career advice.

bamboozle

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

It's a long time since I was at school and maybe things have changed but I found the career guidance was utterly useless.

the one in my school advised everyone to do forestry (when he wasnt humming Christy Moore songs to himself)

Nody

bamboozle wrote: »

the one in my school advised everyone to do forestry (when he wasnt humming Christy Moore songs to himself)

Well it's a career to grow into...

*crickets*

Ok, I'm out of here

To OP, I'd challenge how much is spent on techers vs. results as well (esp. looking at the last 10 to 20 years).

Xenophile

SeaFields wrote: »

I think that their position has become redundant owing to the internet .........

In the present climate radical choices have to be made and this is not one of them. It's a no brainer.

cavedave

Xenophile

Funds spent on Career Guidance, is it money well spent? or could the money be spent in a way that is of better benefit to society overall, say on disadvantaged or Deis schools for instance.

How would you tell if career guidance councillors were valuable? It seems the sort of thing that would be open to experiment. Compare student career outcomes in similar schools where students get career guidance and where they don't. Someone has to have done such an experiment don't they?

Sleepy

Far simpler to just slash salaries across the board and make our schools affordable to run.

cavedave

Sleepy

Far simpler to just slash salaries across the board and make our schools affordable to run.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
Just because it is simple does not mean that is right. If career guidance is as has all the divination powers of extispicy any money and students time spent on it will be wasted.

Our public today is like a king of old whose military advisors spent most of their time and budget reading omens and making sacrifices, to gain the gods' favor, instead of hiring soldiers and talking battle strategy.

Sleepy

So should we give up on teaching maths because it's currently being taught terribly? or Science?

The governance of this country has been shambolic since the foundation of the state, should we abandon the concept of a government now too?

bleg

Handy if the Career Guidance teacher has knowledge of all the options (IRL, UK and mainland Europe.) I don't agree with your statement that there is little choice. There is more choice now than there ever was.


We can't just spend all our money on "disadvantaged" kids. We should be focussing more money on gifted children in my opinion.

cavedave

Sleepy

So should we give up on teaching maths because it's currently being taught terribly? or Science?

The governance of this country has been shambolic since the foundation of the state, should we abandon the concept of a government now too?

Are you actually arguing we should divine the future from animal entrails because it just has not been done right yet?

I am not claiming that we should give up teaching maths and science. I am claiming if something does not work and has been shown internationally not to work we should not be wasting money on it. Maths and science has been shown to work for example by you using a computer.

The governance of this country has not been shambolic in comparison to most countries in the world. Also good or even average institutions have been shown to improve outcomes for the citizens. So no I would not get rid of government.

p1akuw47h5r3it

Career Guidance is useless. However I doubt there is huge, if any savings to be made here.

I'm not out of school a long time (about 3 years) and whilst I had a good career guidance teacher I didnt learn anything I didnt already know. Most stories I've heard about other career guidance teachers have been about how useless they are.

When I was in school we used to always mitch the class, as it was pretty much a waste of time:pac:

FlashD

Despite not having the internet back in the day I also found career guidance to be useless at school. Now a days students have the facility of the internet.

Forums and websites to ask questions about different careers and communicate with professionals in the field is way more beneficial than any career guidence at school.

Students who have an interest in their future already use these resources to their advantage.

Students who don't....well, I think career guidence in any format is a waste of time for that lot.

Regards

doc_17

I'm a teacher and if it wasn't for the fact that this increases the PTR I wouldn't lose any sleep over this cut.

murphaph

We had a combined Religion/Career Guidance teacher. We never actually had any Career Guidance classes. He just sat in his office and you could got to him. I did once, useless.

I mean, this guy (probably retired now, on a nice pension) brought literally nothing to your education. He "taught" two utterly useless "subjects" and was (I presume) on the same pay as our (very good) maths teacher. Joke.

femur61

My sons religion teacher is so untouchable, I didn't have a choice if he should do the subject but so be it. Personally the guy should be scaked but no he can't and I know numereous parents have made complaints against him. The system is so flawed, I spent 14 years learning Irish, so did a lot of my friends but between we'd struggle to get a gramatically correct sentence together. Money from this area could be deployed to more important areas and at least Ruairi Quinn is hoping to make reforms.

Rothe learning needs to be erradicated, when kids get to college they have achieved marks required by rothe learning and grinds then they can't keep up and drop out.

whiteandlight

It is very subjective I think and a lot of you are ignoring the much more vital role that most guidance counsellors are as counsellors not specifically for college.

The guidance counsellor in my school is fantastic. She is the first port of call for any teacher worried about a student/very approachable for all students and is vital to the running of a large school.

I've no idea if she is good for choosing your career but the role I see her play day in day out is far more important, as you say the Internet will tell you plenty about career choice but without this role who is there to care/counsel students in trouble?

nice_guy80

What resources for education???

Schools have to buy everything themselves, usually using funds that they have raised or that parents have raised or paid for.

IT resources - programmes, technology equipmet - cameras etc, hardware
Art supplies
Books - class readers, library books, non fiction reference books
Sports equipment - balls, sticks, cones (most equipment has come from supermarket offers, not from the state)

there is very, very little spend on resources in Irish education.