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School reopenings -current plan WAS McHugh's plan
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The Wordress wrote: »Thread title should be reworded I suppose.
I would not want to be in a position to have to organise any of this hot mess.
There have only been 3 principalships advertised in my county since June, when usually there are 10+. I really feel for anyone in leadership positions atm :eek:
But the lack of adverts would suggest that we are not seeing droves leaving their roles in despair.0 -
Yes, I expected a higher turnover of management roles this summer.0
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The reason for so few Jobs this Summer is,according to a colleague in the Dept.,is teachers are awaiting the 2% wage increase in October before they run for the door!0
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That's fair enough to me, don't blame them for waiting. Another friend told me they can interview for jobs now though for retirees. I'd say there's no hard and fast rule though.0
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deiseindublin wrote: »That's fair enough to me, don't blame them for waiting. Another friend told me they can interview for jobs now though for retirees. I'd say there's no hard and fast rule though.
Probably hold out until August. Some principals if they do indeed go in October might only be giving in their notice now, even if it is known on the ground that they are leaving. Some might stay on until midterm/Christmas and go with a natural break in the calendar.0 -
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Postgrad10 wrote: »The college start dates will probably be pushed back too.
Just on this - and I'm not sure how appropriate it is for this thread, so feel free to remove - that's ok for students who want to study in Ireland, but what happens to those who had planned to study abroad? I'm on the international recruitment committee for my university department in another EU country; normally, we might have maybe 4-5 Irish students out of a first year cohort of around 250 - not many, but that's one department in one university in one country. Even with the virus and with online teaching this year, it looked like our numbers of Irish first years would be fairly stable this year. Most of those students have received conditional offers. But our classes start the 31st August, and the very final day for registering is the 3rd of September. How will that work for the leaving cert students? The university isn't going to be flexible with those dates because of how a foreign government is messing up schedules; the students will likely have to go elsewhere or defer till next year. I've already had a panicky email from a perspective student about this and I have no idea how to reply.
Honestly, I feel very sorry for leaving cert students and teachers (in general). We haven't had a great time of it ourselves - slow reactions and limited guidance from university management - but we do have significantly more autonomy than those in primary and secondary education, so we've been able to organise stuff ourselves. I think I'd be driven mad if I was in the shoes of any of the teachers here.0 -
Just on this - and I'm not sure how appropriate it is for this thread, so feel free to remove - that's ok for students who want to study in Ireland, but what happens to those who had planned to study abroad? I'm on the international recruitment committee for my university department in another EU country; normally, we might have maybe 4-5 Irish students out of a first year cohort of around 250 - not many, but that's one department in one university in one country. Even with the virus and with online teaching this year, it looked like our numbers of Irish first years would be fairly stable this year. Most of those students have received conditional offers. But our classes start the 31st August, and the very final day for registering is the 3rd of September. How will that work for the leaving cert students? The university isn't going to be flexible with those dates because of how a foreign government is messing up schedules; the students will likely have to go elsewhere or defer till next year. I've already had a panicky email from a perspective student about this and I have no idea how to reply.
Honestly, I feel very sorry for leaving cert students and teachers (in general). We haven't had a great time of it ourselves - slow reactions and limited guidance from university management - but we do have significantly more autonomy than those in primary and secondary education, so we've been able to organise stuff ourselves. I think I'd be driven mad if I was in the shoes of any of the teachers here.
I'd imagine that's up to your university to decide whether they will accept late Irish registrations. My guess is that the majority of Irish students who go abroad are going to the UK, and similarly there would be a cohort of students from Northern Ireland who would go to college here so it makes sense to align results for Ireland and UK.
Are the government going to align results for the few that go to other countries? Probably not is my guess. I have no idea how many go abroad (outside of the UK).0 -
I think a sizeable chunk go abroad to study medicine and veterinary.
I think IT reported approx 650 LC students had applied to EU universities (not UK).0 -
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As a (non-teacher) parent, I have complete stress at this point about September.
The Department have been abysmal in all of this.Just terrible.If money can be thrown at the health system, then money can and should be thrown at the education system to get our kids back into school.There are many, many issues, lots of which can be addressed, especially with enough funding.If I even had some faith that they were presenting solutions to the workable problems, it might help, but the lack of anything at all is just terrifying at this point.
Can someone please tell me how other countries have managed to get their schools back.What are they doing that we apparently cannot do?And fine, class sizes is part of it, but that can't be the only reason.If we once more reach a point before September where schools must stay closed, yet they are open in every country around us, serious questions will need to be asked of everybody in our education system.I am not pointing fingers at teachers or principals or primary or secondary or anybody here - my finger is pointed primarily at the Dept - but why is there such an apparent block against doing what every other country seems to have managed?0 -
I have put in a request to change title. I started thread. Look I'm open to suggestions by school and department so long as if I feel sick I don't have to pay 60 euro . Some flexibility on sick leave / uncertified leave. Im lucky i have sick leave left but if you were borderline not being paid or half pay- teachers might be tempted to come in. Otherwise " get well soon cards" don't pay the mortgage etc0
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I have put in a request to change title. I started thread. Look I'm open to suggestions by school and department so long as if I feel sick I don't have to pay 60 euro . Some flexibility on sick leave / uncertified leave. Im lucky i have sick leave left but if you were borderline not being paid or half pay- teachers might be tempted to come in. Otherwise " get well soon cards" don't pay the mortgage etc
I don’t get your fixation with €60 (presumably for a visit to a doctor). There is a circular that covers Covid related absence and it doesn’t affect existing sick leave entitlement. That’s in place since we before we shut down. If you suspect you have coronavirus, I would presume you would be going to doctor to get tested and would get a cert at that point.
Not a whole lot a school can do if you have to visit a doctor.0 -
I have zero faith in the department to plan anything. They are great at writing bull**** school leadership plans blah blah but they have always treated voluntary secondary schools as in bred cousins and thus never funded them properly. Same for national schools.
Thus they will be given money for substitutes which they won't be able to find because of the **** terms and conditions the department created plus lack of housing.0 -
Can someone please tell me how other countries have managed to get their schools back.What are they doing that we apparently cannot do?And fine, class sizes is part of it, but that can't be the only reason.
Why can't it be the only reason? When distancing and number of people you are exposed to are key issues, then class size is of massive importance.
But we also have much poorer physical building facilities than most countries, in terms of number and size of rooms, toilets, sinks, hot water, mains water than many countries. This makes spreading out as much as possible, providing for isolation, and hygiene difficult.
We also have a serious shortage of teachers, particularly the Dublin area, so even if they suddenly budget massive funds to reduce class size they won't have teachers.
We also have less access to ancillary staff such as caretakers and cleaners than in most other countries.
The state of our schools is shockingly poor for a country of our wealth and unprecedented massive funding is now required to allow schools adapt to this crisis. Health did get funding, but it also shut down half its other services completely. We can cope too if we prioritise certain groups and abandon others. But of course that's not acceptable!
Israel has similar class size and facilities to us. They also had low virus levels in the community. They reopened with precautions and some restrictions and it was ok. They then removed most restrictions to open fully and now they have higher virus numbers than ever and schools are closed again with widespread infection of students and teachers.0 -
rainbowtrout wrote: »I don’t get your fixation with €60 (presumably for a visit to a doctor). There is a circular that covers Covid related absence and it doesn’t affect existing sick leave entitlement. That’s in place since we before we shut down. If you suspect you have coronavirus, I would presume you would be going to doctor to get tested and would get a cert at that point.
Not a whole lot a school can do if you have to visit a doctor.
The school no but the government can. You have only 7 days uncertified sick leave over two years. It used to be 30 which was excessive but when you realize that the reason it was so high was when teachers complained about stress or indiscipline they were given more sick leave.
What do we have now ? Not much help with school discipline. A few free councelling sessions which is hardly enough to deal with brats. I know brats is not a PC term but I'm tired of being worn down by poorly behaving kids
Anyway soldier on because everything is Grand in schools ?! Ain't life grand.0 -
Does any teacher here have any experience using any kind of microphone during teaching? I'm very prone to laryngitis and if we're wearing masks in September I can see myself suffering a lot more.
I saw a post was put up on the VfT Facebook page but not much feedback was given.0 -
Terribly sad that we have come to this but not unexpected really! Underfunfing of education especially for the last 10-15 years,due I feel to the way some teachers treated their conditions.They have trully slain the goose that laid the golden egg and have taken it with them and continue to profit with their grinds in "retirement" etc.Not all teachers did this but enough of them did for the Dept to take notice and throw in a recession and all the low hanging fruit was harvested.Its now coming back to bite all in the arse.Teachers are needed but are nowhere to be found.
The usual career path is as follows,in year one you may spend the year running around doing a couple of hours subbing in a number of different schools.This is not financially viable but has to be done in order to get teaching experience.This can go on for a number of years if you are willing to stick at it.Mind you the reality is that you will emigrate after 1 or 2 years of this and will get a worthwhile post overseas and with flights paid home twice a year plus paid for furnished accomodation.
On the other hand supposing you stay in Ireland you may pick up a Maternity Leave which will give you 3 months of a full timetable ,after this you have to job search again and perhaps may not get anything for the rest of the year.
Around about year 3 or 4 ,if you are lucky enough,your local ETB will advertise a 3 or 4 hour contract for which you will apply and if you are lucky enough (know the interview panel,brown envelopes etc,and NOT compete against a son or daughter or other relative of the panel),you may find yourself with a spanking new job,3 hours per week for the whole year!!!!!! If they like you ,you may (after interviewing again,(gotta feed the interview panel yearly),) be successful and low and behold after 2 years you now qualify for a CID a contract of indefinite duration,mighty stuff,your own job,3 hours a week,imagine the richess this brings your way.....imagine running down to the Bank asking them for a loan or mortgage and telling them you have a job....3 hours a week!!!,wouldnt they laugh at you and perhaps call the local mental institution as with all due respect this sort of teacher does not exist.....or does it.Most certainly in the ETB world it does.And by the ways when the bank asks you what do you get per month,tell them that after 4 months you had not received any money as they were still processing your details(yet you have been teaching since day1 of your contract)
Now tell me what other profession treats its workers like this.I would NOT encourage any family member to go near teaching as a profession as what I have outlined above is what usually happens!
As I said I attach a lot of blame to the previous teachers for what we have now arrived at.(and some of them are still coining it)
This Covid19 was supposed to be a wake up call where humans would treat their fellow humans with more respect!
Yet we have the Media,who for the most part absolutely hate teachers,deciding when we do Junior Cert,Leaving Cert,how we are to manage our resources while giving every child a fair chance.The amount of Gombeenism and Sleevenism in education is shocking and is still being run by FCUKERS in authority that only care about money for themselves.
Wake up,give the young teacher a chance,give them a PROPER FULL HOURS JOB,remember they will contribute to making sure Your pensions are financed into the future.Let them get a mortgage,let them raise a family and do no be so effin selfish to continue to claim long after your "retirement" while you sit on the Golden of Goldenest Pensions. LET EQUALITY START NOW!0 -
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Alex86Eire wrote: »Does any teacher here have any experience using any kind of microphone during teaching? I'm very prone to laryngitis and if we're wearing masks in September I can see myself suffering a lot more.
I saw a post was put up on the VfT Facebook page but not much feedback was given.
I was contemplating potential solutions to schooling problems the other day (the whole thing is really bothering me)...no way would I expect teachers to either project their voices from behind a mask, or a screen all day.But a solution could be clip-on microphones that our lecturers used to have in college, that transmitted to a sound system in the lecture hall.Obviously classrooms are not wired this way, but I imagine there would be some sort of option to potentially put a small standalone speaker in rooms.Relative to a lecture hall, they quite small.If each teacher had their own mike to prevent cross-contamination (i am mainly thinking secondary schools here now, not primary), they could conceivably teach from
behind a screen without damaging their voice, but still remaining safe.
Of course that would require...you know...investment......and planning.....and leadership....none of which is evident to date....0 -
I was contemplating potential solutions to schooling problems the other day (the whole thing is really bothering me)...no way would I expect teachers to either project their voices from behind a mask, or a screen all day.But a solution could be clip-on microphones that our lecturers used to have in college, that transmitted to a sound system in the lecture hall.Obviously classrooms are not wired this way, but I imagine there would be some sort of option to potentially put a small standalone speaker in rooms.Relative to a lecture hall, they quite small.If each teacher had their own mike to prevent cross-contamination (i am mainly thinking secondary schools here now, not primary), they could conceivably teach from
behind a screen without damaging their voice, but still remaining safe.
Of course that would require...you know...investment......and planning.....and leadership....none of which is evident to date....
Thanks. Yes its the sound amplifiers I'm looking at. There's a headset and either a speaker you can clip on to your waist or a little bluetooth speaker to put in the classroom.
There is a massive amount out there though and the price range is pretty wide so was hoping someone here might have personal experience using one.0 -
Alex86Eire wrote: »Does any teacher here have any experience using any kind of microphone during teaching? I'm very prone to laryngitis and if we're wearing masks in September I can see myself suffering a lot more.
I saw a post was put up on the VfT Facebook page but not much feedback was given.
Ya. I’ve had a few bouts of laryngitis and two teachers who have since retired from my school both used microphones all the time.
We still have their ones. I had a headset like one used in a call centre and a yoke that looked like a Walkman which had a belt so once I turned it on I could turn up the volume as loud as I needed. It was great because I didn’t need to strain my voice.
Kids also get a great kick out of it!0 -
Alex86Eire wrote: »Does any teacher here have any experience using any kind of microphone during teaching? I'm very prone to laryngitis and if we're wearing masks in September I can see myself suffering a lot more.
I saw a post was put up on the VfT Facebook page but not much feedback was given.
The ones I've seen/used in classrooms hang around your neck like a bulky necklace. They weren't too bad to use.
They're normally used when a student in the classroom suffers from hearing problems.0 -
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Terribly sad that we have come to this but not unexpected really! Underfunfing of education especially for the last 10-15 years,due I feel to the way some teachers treated their conditions.They have trully slain the goose that laid the golden egg and have taken it with them and continue to profit with their grinds in "retirement" etc.Not all teachers did this but enough of them did for the Dept to take notice and throw in a recession and all the low hanging fruit was harvested.Its now coming back to bite all in the arse.Teachers are needed but are nowhere to be found.
The usual career path is as follows,in year one you may spend the year running around doing a couple of hours subbing in a number of different schools.This is not financially viable but has to be done in order to get teaching experience.This can go on for a number of years if you are willing to stick at it.Mind you the reality is that you will emigrate after 1 or 2 years of this and will get a worthwhile post overseas and with flights paid home twice a year plus paid for furnished accomodation.
On the other hand supposing you stay in Ireland you may pick up a Maternity Leave which will give you 3 months of a full timetable ,after this you have to job search again and perhaps may not get anything for the rest of the year.
Around about year 3 or 4 ,if you are lucky enough,your local ETB will advertise a 3 or 4 hour contract for which you will apply and if you are lucky enough (know the interview panel,brown envelopes etc,and NOT compete against a son or daughter or other relative of the panel),you may find yourself with a spanking new job,3 hours per week for the whole year!!!!!! If they like you ,you may (after interviewing again,(gotta feed the interview panel yearly),) be successful and low and behold after 2 years you now qualify for a CID a contract of indefinite duration,mighty stuff,your own job,3 hours a week,imagine the richess this brings your way.....imagine running down to the Bank asking them for a loan or mortgage and telling them you have a job....3 hours a week!!!,wouldnt they laugh at you and perhaps call the local mental institution as with all due respect this sort of teacher does not exist.....or does it.Most certainly in the ETB world it does.And by the ways when the bank asks you what do you get per month,tell them that after 4 months you had not received any money as they were still processing your details(yet you have been teaching since day1 of your contract)
Now tell me what other profession treats its workers like this.I would NOT encourage any family member to go near teaching as a profession as what I have outlined above is what usually happens!
As I said I attach a lot of blame to the previous teachers for what we have now arrived at.(and some of them are still coining it)
This Covid19 was supposed to be a wake up call where humans would treat their fellow humans with more respect!
Yet we have the Media,who for the most part absolutely hate teachers,deciding when we do Junior Cert,Leaving Cert,how we are to manage our resources while giving every child a fair chance.The amount of Gombeenism and Sleevenism in education is shocking and is still being run by FCUKERS in authority that only care about money for themselves.
Wake up,give the young teacher a chance,give them a PROPER FULL HOURS JOB,remember they will contribute to making sure Your pensions are financed into the future.Let them get a mortgage,let them raise a family and do no be so effin selfish to continue to claim long after your "retirement" while you sit on the Golden of Goldenest Pensions. LET EQUALITY START NOW!
Is it possible for you to post without the hyperbolic ranting?
Lots of teachers do grinds, young and old and that has always been the way. Teachers doing grinds does not make a blind bit of difference to the hours a person gets in their contract.
The timeline you have outlined there is the very worst scenario possible. Lots of teachers do get low hours starting out but I have seen far less contracts in recent years advertised for 4 hours etc. No one in my school has started on less than 14 in the last four years or so and those that did have moved up to 22.
Comments about feeding the interview panel are bull. Those interviews have to happen after the first year as you well know. This has all come about as a result of the ward report to shorten the eligibility for CID.
Maternity leave contracts are not three months they are six. The vast majority of teachers I have encountered take the full six, to the point that there are now a rash of maternity leaves advertised each year for December and I presume with the two extra weeks parental leave that was introduced last year that will shift back to mid November for many. The only three month maternity contracts that exist are for teachers that have their maternity run over the summer.
You cannot possibly expect to be taken seriously when you just come out with rubbish like that.0 -
How will that work for the leaving cert students? The university isn't going to be flexible with those dates because of how a foreign government is messing up schedules; the students will likely have to go elsewhere or defer till next year.
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Looks like you already have the answer to your own question.0 -
Terribly sad that we have come to this but not unexpected really! Underfunfing of education especially for the last 10-15 years,due I feel to the way some teachers treated their conditions.They have trully slain the goose that laid the golden egg and have taken it with them and continue to profit with their grinds in "retirement" etc.Not all teachers did this but enough of them did for the Dept to take notice and throw in a recession and all the low hanging fruit was harvested.Its now coming back to bite all in the arse.Teachers are needed but are nowhere to be found.
The usual career path is as follows,in year one you may spend the year running around doing a couple of hours subbing in a number of different schools.This is not financially viable but has to be done in order to get teaching experience.This can go on for a number of years if you are willing to stick at it.Mind you the reality is that you will emigrate after 1 or 2 years of this and will get a worthwhile post overseas and with flights paid home twice a year plus paid for furnished accomodation.
On the other hand supposing you stay in Ireland you may pick up a Maternity Leave which will give you 3 months of a full timetable ,after this you have to job search again and perhaps may not get anything for the rest of the year.
Around about year 3 or 4 ,if you are lucky enough,your local ETB will advertise a 3 or 4 hour contract for which you will apply and if you are lucky enough (know the interview panel,brown envelopes etc,and NOT compete against a son or daughter or other relative of the panel),you may find yourself with a spanking new job,3 hours per week for the whole year!!!!!! If they like you ,you may (after interviewing again,(gotta feed the interview panel yearly),) be successful and low and behold after 2 years you now qualify for a CID a contract of indefinite duration,mighty stuff,your own job,3 hours a week,imagine the richess this brings your way.....imagine running down to the Bank asking them for a loan or mortgage and telling them you have a job....3 hours a week!!!,wouldnt they laugh at you and perhaps call the local mental institution as with all due respect this sort of teacher does not exist.....or does it.Most certainly in the ETB world it does.And by the ways when the bank asks you what do you get per month,tell them that after 4 months you had not received any money as they were still processing your details(yet you have been teaching since day1 of your contract)
Now tell me what other profession treats its workers like this.I would NOT encourage any family member to go near teaching as a profession as what I have outlined above is what usually happens!
As I said I attach a lot of blame to the previous teachers for what we have now arrived at.(and some of them are still coining it)
This Covid19 was supposed to be a wake up call where humans would treat their fellow humans with more respect!
Yet we have the Media,who for the most part absolutely hate teachers,deciding when we do Junior Cert,Leaving Cert,how we are to manage our resources while giving every child a fair chance.The amount of Gombeenism and Sleevenism in education is shocking and is still being run by FCUKERS in authority that only care about money for themselves.
Wake up,give the young teacher a chance,give them a PROPER FULL HOURS JOB,remember they will contribute to making sure Your pensions are financed into the future.Let them get a mortgage,let them raise a family and do no be so effin selfish to continue to claim long after your "retirement" while you sit on the Golden of Goldenest Pensions. LET EQUALITY START NOW!
A bit simplistic. Only certain subjects attract grinds and depends on where you live. Despite not having much paperwork or over sight the kids educated in 1970-2000 were not poorly educated by teachers . There was hardly any emphasis on special needs or inclusion which was remiss. For all I know the ASTI did campaign for these.
Now we have two pay scales and people stabbing each other in the back for 4k before tax. You can't blame the old timers- they had been on strike several times and longer than 2 ****ing days. Many new staff ran into the arms of the TUI but now expelled from that treacherous lot. Too good for them.
But you are right about the long journey most teachers take to get a decent job. They used to be able to at least take comfort in a decent pension. However me hole Martin and his cronies took that away0 -
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Most solid plan we have yet
:D 0 -
Seems like it has firm, sensible yet achievable objectives 😂0 -
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Simeon Mysterious Minibike wrote: »Why can't it be the only reason? When distancing and number of people you are exposed to are key issues, then class size is of massive importance.
But we also have much poorer physical building facilities than most countries, in terms of number and size of rooms, toilets, sinks, hot water, mains water than many countries. This makes spreading out as much as possible, providing for isolation, and hygiene difficult.
We also have a serious shortage of teachers, particularly the Dublin area, so even if they suddenly budget massive funds to reduce class size they won't have teachers.
We also have less access to ancillary staff such as caretakers and cleaners than in most other countries.
The state of our schools is shockingly poor for a country of our wealth and unprecedented massive funding is now required to allow schools adapt to this crisis. Health did get funding, but it also shut down half its other services completely. We can cope too if we prioritise certain groups and abandon others. But of course that's not acceptable!
Israel has similar class size and facilities to us. They also had low virus levels in the community. They reopened with precautions and some restrictions and it was ok. They then removed most restrictions to open fully and now they have higher virus numbers than ever and schools are closed again with widespread infection of students and teachers.
See, I can accept all of that as being the current situation, but what I cannot accept is that we apparently can find no way at all around this.And for what it's worth, I have stated elsewhere that health might have shut down half its services to cope first time around, but it cannot afford to do that another time around.So they will have had to figure out ways to manage another influx as best as possible while continuing as many other services as possible.The initial reaction was knee-jerk, do what we had to do - once that is done, use the time to figure out long-term strategies.In the meantime there has now been 4 months and more to figure out how to manage the school situation, and there is just nothing.Nothing.Other than headlines about our class sizes and our buildings, but practically nothing about what we are going to actually do to try and mitigate those things.
Like for example, the teacher a few posts ago contemplating using a microphone in class.Can there not be budgets made available for schools who decide to adopt this solution.Or budgets for extra PPE, hand sanitisers, equipment.Budgets for extra cleaning.Staggered drop offs and pickups.Staggered yard times.None of these things are insurmountable, and for some at the very least, the Dept should be making the money available.At least tick some of the problems off the list, offering budgets for the range of solutions.Potentially consider a standard system-wide online education platform for secondary, and one for primary, should secondary schools decide to do blended learning for certain classes.There are many ways and means to overcome a lot of the problems, (not all) and if they could solve the most basic ones it would feel like some progress.And I fully appreciate it is all"magic money" to be pulled from somewhere, but we managed to buy out private hospitals for 3 months.....the money needs to be found.
Reality for most parents is kids need to be back in school.It is irrelevant whether I am working or not, I cannot provide a classroom environment for my 6 year old (and I am lucky - I only have 1 in school).I am not a teacher. I do not want to be one, and I cannot take on a new year with new concepts and new learning from Sept.I do not have the resources or the training to do it, any more than I would expect a teacher to know how to be an engineer, which is what I do. The idea that we can indefinitely "homeschool" kids because there are insurmountable problems preventing our schools from reopening is just not acceptable at this point.I can totally understand teacher's reservations, but my anger is directed at the Department, who are just not stepping up at all in this situation.0 -
See, I can accept all of that as being the current situation, but what I cannot accept is that we apparently can find no way at all around this.
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Sure. Schools must be funded on an unprecedented and massive scale to open them safely and most importantly keep them open. It should happen. They should pull out all the stops and prioritise this above everything else but health.
But the fact remains that it's pointless to say "how can other countries do it?", or to think Ireland can't be that different to those countries. Ireland is very different. Ireland's education system really is that badly off in terms of funding and facilities. Irish people really have stood back and ignored it and failed to make it an election issue. This is the consequences. We are not like Germany or Denmark in our schools we are like Israel, so when you make a comparison that is where you should look.
But yes, of course it should be prioritised now as an emergency. Children need a functional school system even in a pandemic. Parents need a functional school system even in a pandemic. But it's going to be harder here because for some reason I personally find mindblowing, Irish people accepted shoddy inadequate school infrastructure that impacted badly on their children daily before any pandemic, and did not make it an election issue.0 -
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Actually, I don't entirely agree with that.I don't think many people really realise how the school system really works. I don't think they realise that principals are expected to deal with as much as they do.I think that many are under the impression that the Dept do everything, (sure why else do they exist?), which isn't really the case when it comes down to individual school infrastructure. As for making it an election issue, for who??People vote for the local TD that promises them the new local school or extension or new building in a local school.There is no party out there with the slightest interest in education as a whole.So how can you raise it as an election issue?We fail miserably to view anything on a country-wide basis in this country - everything is parochial.Health is a prime example of this too, and over the years successive governments have been happy to let religious orders and voluntary groups (or charities) fill in the missing gaps in the education and health systems.As a result it has never needed to raise it's head as an issue for most parties, because sure it's been taken care of locally.
But setting that aside, my question still stands - what are other countries doing that we can do, might be the better way to phrase it?? Are they doing anything that we could adapt and tweak to suit us?Is anybody even looking at solutions or are we still just at "no, that won't work here??".I just get the feeling that we are drifting slowly back to where we were around early May, when I got the distinct impression that they just couldn't be a%^ed putting the effort into reopening schools, and a similar attitude will prevail for Sept.We are going through the motions buying books and uniforms as instructed, but I have no faith at all that we will be using them.0 -
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Actually, I don't entirely agree with that.I don't think many people really realise how the school system really works. I don't think they realise that principals are expected to deal with as much as they do.I think that many are under the impression that the Dept do everything, (sure why else do they exist?), which isn't really the case when it comes down to individual school infrastructure. As for making it an election issue, for who??People vote for the local TD that promises them the new local school or extension or new building in a local school.There is no party out there with the slightest interest in education as a whole.So how can you raise it as an election issue?We fail miserably to view anything on a country-wide basis in this country - everything is parochial.Health is a prime example of this too, and over the years successive governments have been happy to let religious orders and voluntary groups (or charities) fill in the missing gaps in the education and health systems.As a result it has never needed to raise it's head as an issue for most parties, because sure it's been taken care of locally.
But setting that aside, my question still stands - what are other countries doing that we can do, might be the better way to phrase it?? Are they doing anything that we could adapt and tweak to suit us?Is anybody even looking at solutions or are we still just at "no, that won't work here??".I just get the feeling that we are drifting slowly back to where we were around early May, when I got the distinct impression that they just couldn't be a%^ed putting the effort into reopening schools, and a similar attitude will prevail for Sept.We are going through the motions buying books and uniforms as instructed, but I have no faith at all that we will be using them.
The solution is more money for schools. To be fair to outsourcing services to charirties / religious it's not as bad a deal as made out. Avoids bureaucratic centralisation. The state ain't that efficient.
However now now is the time to spend making this work but you can't pretend that a decade of ****ing teachers around has not had an impact on teacher recruitment. Throw into the mix a dysfunctional housing market that has not been functional since the mid 1990s and it's not going to be easy to recruit subs to make this work particularly in Dublin.
Our USA brothers are not doing well with all their money so let's not whip up an inferiority complex about how inefficient we are.0
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