Resignation of Ruairi Quinn

Lockstep

RTE just announced Ruairi Quinn is resigning as Minister for Education

Thoughts?

I liked how he tried to get the Catholic Church out of our schools but his u-turn on third level fees was fairly poor.

Celly Smunt

Good riddance.

Un Croissant

He claims its to let the new labour team get to work, presumably thinking that cleaning out the old guard will help keep Labour alive. Don't know how well that will work with Burton at the head.

Permabear

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Godge

Permabear wrote: »

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I agree with a lot of the above but you would have to question how much progress he made on these issues. Has the amount of Irish and religion in schools actually dropped? Has he embraced a primary curriculum that acknowledges that there are different teaching and learning methods appropriate to different subjects and to different children? It still seems that the latest fashion is the latest curriculum. How many schools have seen a change in patronage?

What is needed now is a Minister who will drive forward these changes. Not one who will kowtow to special interests to win the election.

Manach

His idealogical driven policies meant he was too given to follow whatever leftish lobby group shrieked the loudest with his very muted response to the paring away of tax-breaks that did curtailed people seeking private education.

comongethappy

Manach wrote: »

His idealogical driven policies meant he was too given to follow whatever leftish lobby group shrieked the loudest with his very muted response to the paring away of tax-breaks that did curtailed people seeking private education.

What ideological change has been implemented on his watch?

Manach

comongethappy wrote: »

What ideological change has been implemented on his watch?

... as per the paeans of praise being lavish on him being such a Anti-Catholic Church crusader earlier on in the thread.

Permabear

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comongethappy

Manach wrote: »

... as per the paeans of praise being lavish on him being such a Anti-Catholic Church crusader earlier on in the thread.

Again, what has changed?

Not ideals, concrete actual change.

Thanks.

touts

He's just jumping before the Dear Leaderess comes in and purges all those who she believes stood in her way of advancement over the past 20 years. You know the standard sort of thing in a socialist succession fight.

Inspector Coptoor

Hopefully now that car crash that is the JCSA (new Junior Cert) can be scrapped, or at least severely rowed back on.

He was a minister of insults, bluster & rail roading.

Good riddance

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Manach

comongethappy wrote: »

Not ideals, concrete actual change.

The recent bill coming before cabinet that undermines the ability of schools to uphold their ability to keep there religious ethos.

brooke 2

touts wrote: »

He's just jumping before the Dear Leaderess comes in and purges all those who she believes stood in her way of advancement over the past 20 years. You know the standard sort of thing in a socialist succession fight.

Well, he did say that he was resigning sooner than he might have liked. He did
not want to wait for the ignominy of being pushed.

touts

Godge wrote: »

What is needed now is a Minister who will drive forward these changes. Not one who will kowtow to special interests to win the election.

Quinn talked a good talk but he didn't have the resources to do what he wanted. It's all well and good to talk about taking over all the schools from the church but no one was going to give him the money to do that. It's fine to talk about reforming the junior cert and bring in real life skills but where was the money for the equipment, books and training to make all that happen (I heard of one in service for English where the trainer was telling a group of teachers that they should introduce a radio show where students would take turns doing things like presenting the show live, producing it from the booth outside pre-recording and editing segments etc. When one teacher stuck up her hand and said they didn't have a radio station in her school his answer was just ask the Board of Management to build one).

Whoever comes in is going to face exactly the same budget restrictions as Quinn did.

comongethappy

Manach wrote: »

The recent bill coming before cabinet that undermines the ability of schools to uphold their ability to keep there religious ethos.

Is that the bill where schools can't sack teachers for being gay or un-wed?

Celly Smunt

Manach wrote: »

The recent bill coming before cabinet that undermines the ability of schools to uphold their ability to keep there religious ethos.

Its merely a recommendation, not a bill. Religious ethics will remain in schools for the forseeable future.

Godge

Manach wrote: »

The recent bill coming before cabinet that undermines the ability of schools to uphold their ability to keep there religious ethos.

no that is a bill to eliminate discrimination, required by EU law and therefore not part of anything Quinn decided.

comongethappy

So the former Minister actually did nothing to liberalise the system?

Orion

Godge wrote: »

What is needed now is a Minister who will drive forward these changes. Not one who will kowtow to special interests to win the election.

Unfortunately it will be Sean Sherlock so that's out the window.

petronius

ah yes Ruairi "the liar" Quinn, new full well when he was signing the USI pledge that he was telling pork pies just to get elected.
Hopefully we get a more moderate and sensible minister of education who can bring together all elements of the education system, and not pursing a narrow minded secular agenda Quinn did - protestant(Church of Ireland) ethos schools suffered with funding reduced by his measures forcing them to join the state system and lose their independence and dilute their ethos.

comongethappy

petronius wrote: »

Hopefully we get a more moderate and sensible minister of education who can bring together all elements of the education system, and not pursing a narrow minded secular agenda Quinn did - protestant(Church of Ireland) ethos schools suffered with funding reduced by his measures forcing them to join the state system and lose their independence and dilute their ethos.

At some point.... somehow.... the Irish are going to have to come clean on whether they want to live in an actual republic or not.

A real republic would have municipal schools, free of religion interference.... working along side religious schools, for those who chose to have a religious education.

Quinn didn't change the current anti-republican status-quo one bit.

Kristopherus

Orion wrote: »

Unfortunately it will be Sean Sherlock so that's out the window.

He's the last person I want in Education:mad:.

Tombo2001

Not withstanding the past three years, where going by the above comments he talked a good game but didnt achieve all that much, what exactly is this guys legacy?

He has been a senior government 'presence' for close maybe 25 or 30 years.

What has he achieved of note?

What did the public get from Ruairi Quinn that warrants the small fortune it costs the taxpayer to cover his expenses and salary as a minister, and pension thereafter?

(please dont see this as a cynical question: I am genuinely asking).

allthedoyles

The man is 68 - let him retire , and bring employment to a younger version.

Anyone mention yet how many pensions he will have / annual entitlements

Tombo2001

allthedoyles wrote: »

The man is 68 - let him retire , and bring employment to a younger version.

Anyone mention yet how many pensions he will have / annual entitlements

A lot.

Academic discussing (whingeing about) it, as he will get the money and not care what anyone thinks, as they all do.

To be fair, anyone who has worked in politics until 68 years old has put in a lot of hours.

comongethappy

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Not withstanding the past three years, where going by the above comments he talked a good game but didnt achieve all that much, what exactly is this guys legacy?

He has been a senior government 'presence' for close maybe 25 or 30 years.

What has he achieved of note?

What did the public get from Ruairi Quinn that warrants the small fortune it costs the taxpayer to cover his expenses and salary as a minister, and pension thereafter?

(please dont see this as a cynical question: I am genuinely asking).

He was a very competent minister of finance.
He brought real growth, rather than the deficit busting debt inflated growth from FF

Tombo2001

comongethappy wrote: »

He was a very competent minister of finance.
He brought real growth, rather than the deficit busting debt inflated growth from FF

The only government minister that ever brought 'real growth' was the one who set up the IDA, and even that was probably a Civil Servants initiative.

'Real' growth is something that private industry creates, not governments.......taking credit for it is another matter altogether.

comongethappy

Tombo2001 wrote: »

'Real' growth is something that private industry creates, not governments.......taking credit for it is another matter altogether.

Okay.... So creating the legislative & regulatory framework to allow prosperity to grow is done by who?

By your logic, no minister of finance created anything.... anywhere....ever.

Tombo2001

comongethappy wrote: »

Okay.... So creating the legislative & regulatory framework to allow prosperity to grow is done by who?

By your logic, no minister of finance created anything.... anywhere....ever.

Yes, that would be more or less my argument.

Legislation facilitates growth (or to put it differently, not getting in the way of growth).

Which is quite different to creating growth. And what you yourself said was "he brought real growth".

And if you want to make the argument that the economic growth in Ireland during the mid 1990s, when (i) we were emerging from a deep recession (ii) we were benefitting from a huge reduction in interests due to currency alignment with the EU (iii) our ttrade balance and employment levels were boosted by very heavy investment by MNCs such as Intel (iv) there was a peace dividend from the IRA ceasefire (linked to point iii) (v) hugely positive demographics and upskilling of the workforce.....and you want to make the argument that it was actually Ruairi Quinn who 'brought real growth' as opposed to any of these factors......

Anyway, leaving aside the pedantics, which part of the legislative and regulatory framework were his creations (bearing in mind where the regulatory framework got us in the decade after his term).

comongethappy

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Yes, that would be more or less my argument.

Legislation facilitates growth (or to put it differently, not getting in the way of growth).

" oversaw real growth" may have been a better choice.

which part of the legislative and regulatory framework were his creations (bearing in mind where the regulatory framework got us in the decade after his term).

No idea? I was 9 at the time & in another continent.... He wasn't on my radar.
I'm not going to trawl Dáil archives.... You can if you wish.
I'm sure there is something that help facilitate economic growth in there.

Orion

Kristopherus wrote: »

He's the last person I want in Education:mad:.

He'll apply SOPA to schools. I'd hate to see him get it but he's the one tipped for it.

Bits_n_Bobs

Seemed to annoy the teachers unions so guessing he was at least attempting to reform the mess...

petronius

Back to the actual topic -
changing the Junior Cert (and indeed Leaving cert) required buy in by the stakeholders, the schools, the teachers, the parents, the students and the dept.
Rather than a Quinn edict bulldozed through.
-
what do students learn from Minister Quinn - well he broke his promise, he lied in signing the USI pledge!
-
Under his watch the reputation for Ireland as a destination for learning english has suffered due to lack of regulation
-
The withdrawal of support for Protestant ethos schools who were fee paying is an attack on the protestant minority in the 26 counties.
-
His measures to force Teachers training colleges to merge and in the case of the CICE(Church of Ireland Training College) sunder its relationship with TCD by joining SPCD as part of his crusade against religious affiliated institutions and a de facto take over of them (by making them surrogate to secular institutions) to remove their ethos as much as possible
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The Dept and minister should be neutral when it comes to religious affiliated schooling or non-religious affiliated schooling rather than the minister and dept being biased in favour of non-religious schooling.

Dave!

petronius wrote: »

-
The Dept and minister should be neutral when it comes to religious affiliated schooling or non-religious affiliated schooling rather than the minister and dept being biased in favour of non-religious schooling.

That's another way of saying "The Minister should retain the status quo" Neutrality in terms of that issue means a secular public school system. Unfortunately progress towards that is very slow, and is probably going to be even slower now, so I'll probably end up having to baptise my child whenever I have one, so that they might get into the local public school. Outstanding.

TINA1984

He took the brave decision of eliminating post graduate maintenance grants. Don't have rich parents or have a part time job while doing a Masters? tough.

Annasopra

Godge wrote: »

no that is a bill to eliminate discrimination, required by EU law and therefore not part of anything Quinn decided.

Well thats completely untrue. The EU commission upheld section 37 in 2008 so its completely untrue to say the EU forced this on Quinn. This was a Labour manifesto issue pushed by Quinn.

RichardAnd

petronius wrote: »

Back to the actual topic -
what do students learn from Minister Quinn - well he broke his promise, he lied in signing the USI pledge!

I would have mentioned this, but you beat me to it. I actually don't like the idea of "free" college, but I also hate statesmen who make promises when they blatantly know they can not / will not keep them. Of course, I also think it's highly foolish to believe anything such people taut.

Reformed Character

Manach wrote: »

The recent bill coming before cabinet that undermines the ability of schools to uphold their ability to keep there religious ethos.

So that's an example of something that hasn't been done, and may never be done.

Frank Lee Midere

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I know facts never sway you but the last PISA results on literacy showed Ireland pretty much top in Europe for 15 year olds.

irishdude11

Well we might as well forget about reforming the education system now. If someone like Quinn who went up against all the vested interests couldn't get the job done what chance have we got of the next guy getting anything done...we are going to end up with some typical Irish thick politician who will not stick his neck out on anything that could cost him votes.

At least Quinn tried to get the Catholic Church to f*** off out of the education system, reduce the ridiculous amount of time wasted on Irish and Religion, etc...that he didn't succeed shows how powerful the vested interests are.

I do think it was very bad form lying about the fees issue before the election, he should've just been honest or made no comment. I was actually affected by that decision. But I have to say he is one of the very few politicians in one of the big parties who has no time for the special interests groups holding the country back, and he had the courage to go up against them while taking serious flack.

Hotblack Desiato

irishdude11 wrote: »

I do think it was very bad form lying about the fees issue before the election, he should've just been honest or made no comment. I was actually affected by that decision. But I have to say he is one of the very few politicians in one of the big parties who has no time for the special interests groups holding the country back, and he had the courage to go up against them while taking serious flack.

You'd have to wonder why any politician or party calling themselves socialist would think that a subsidy to the rich paid for by the taxes of the poor is a good thing. Those who benefit from free/low fees are overwhelmingly from the better off sector of society. I'm no lefty by any means but it really grates with me how it is taken for granted that the children of the privileged professional classes in this country will themselves enter that class as if by birthright.

nice_guy80

irishdude11 wrote: »

Well we might as well forget about reforming the education system now. If someone like Quinn who went up against all the vested interests couldn't get the job done what chance have we got of the next guy getting anything done...we are going to end up with some typical Irish thick politician who will not stick his neck out on anything that could cost him votes.

At least Quinn tried to get the Catholic Church to f*** off out of the education system, reduce the ridiculous amount of time wasted on Irish and Religion, etc...that he didn't succeed shows how powerful the vested interests are.

I do think it was very bad form lying about the fees issue before the election, he should've just been honest or made no comment. I was actually affected by that decision. But I have to say he is one of the very few politicians in one of the big parties who has no time for the special interests groups holding the country back, and he had the courage to go up against them while taking serious flack.

but he didn't go up against them
he waffled and did very little
in fact, he has made things harder for schools.
he increased the amount of paperwork and bureaucracy by at least 200%, which for small schools with a teaching principal makes things very difficult

in the likes of education you cannot 'take on' various groups. that is not the way schools are run. decisions are generally taken together by all the staff and work is done collaboratively.

if Quinn really wanted to change education he would have got teachers and schools involved in the process, not dictate things from on high, as suggested by his advisors

spear_mint

he didnt kneel too often before the teacher lobby , hence the hate

nice_guy80

spear_mint wrote: »

he didnt kneel too often before the teacher lobby , hence the hate

he never met the teachers!
he wouldn't even attend school openings.
policy was dictated to all from on high

eg schools received news in June, a week before they were to close about changes to the way support teachers would be allocated.
1 week before the holidays!!!!

do people realise the panic that caused in schools as principals frantically tried to figure out the implications for their school, staff numbers and the kids who rely on these support teachers - learning support and resource.

comongethappy

nice_guy80 wrote: »

eg schools received news in June, a week before they were to close about changes to the way support teachers would be allocated.
1 week before the holidays!!!!

do people realise the panic that caused in schools as principals frantically tried to figure out the implications for their school, staff numbers and the kids who rely on these support teachers - learning support and resource.

9 weeks to re-jig staffing assignments seems OK for an organisation to manage?

There is always a level of dictat from the man in charge..... Not everything necessitates buy-in from all levels.

Workplaces aren't democracies or soviets.

nice_guy80

comongethappy wrote: »

9 weeks to re-jig staffing assignments seems OK for an organisation to manage?

There is always a level of dictat from the man in charge..... Not everything necessitates buy-in from all levels.

Workplaces aren't democracies or soviets.

er, principals go on holidays too.

its not just a case of rejigging staffing within the school
some people will lose their jobs, and won't know about it until the school looks at all the fine print
and then shared jobs have to be looked at with other schools

comongethappy

nice_guy80 wrote: »

er, principals go on holidays too.

Indeed, lots & lots of holidays.

its not just a case of rejigging staffing within the school
some people will lose their jobs, and won't know about it until the school looks at all the fine print
and then shared jobs have to be looked at with other schools

My point is, every organisation will receive instructions, or orders, often radical & complex in scope.

We just get on with it though, no strikes, no tantrums.
When a CEO decides on a change, he doesn't need to consult with every staff member to gauge how they feel.

In the case of Quinn, no matter what reform, the teachers were against it anyway.
So why bother trying to placate the already hostile?

Waste of time appeasing the unappeasable

nice_guy80

comongethappy wrote: »

Indeed, lots & lots of holidays.



My point is, every organisation will receive instructions, or orders, often radical & complex in scope.

We just get on with it though, no strikes, no tantrums.
When a CEO decides on a change, he doesn't need to consult with every staff member to gauge how they feel.

In the case of Quinn, no matter what reform, the teachers were against it anyway.
So why bother trying to placate the already hostile?

Waste of time appeasing the unappeasable

whats this 'we'? where do you work?
you don't know what you are talking about. when have teachers been on strike?

that is not the way schools are run
they are not businesses
the principal is a school leader, not a ceo
decisions are usually taken collaboratively on a lot of issues.

if you had ever worked in a school, you would know that children and staff are worn out by the time the holidays arrive.
non teachers might begrudge them the holidays, but the children need the break as much as the staff.

comongethappy

nice_guy80 wrote: »

whats this 'we'? where do you work?
you don't know what you are talking about. when have teachers been on strike?

that is not the way schools are run
they are not businesses
the principal is a school leader, not a ceo
decisions are usually taken collaboratively on a lot of issues.

if you had ever worked in a school, you would know that children and staff are worn out by the time the holidays arrive.
non teachers might begrudge them the holidays, but the children need the break as much as the staff.

Didn't say "strike".... Though they b*tch about going on one often enough.

I didn't compare the principle to a CEO, I was referring to the minister.

D minus for English comprehension.