peteacher wrote: » Why should parents have to send their kids to the local Catholic school? What what I can make out the COI (and other non Catholic students) sit in the back of the class whilst the rest prepare for holy communion and confirmation and waste valuable learning time, instead of engaging in other areas of the curriculum? It is within every parent's right to choose what kind of an education their child receives and most COI kids have to travel quite a distance to get there. Either all schools do not provide religious education (for one denomination or another) or else these various types of schools must be provided for.
TheDriver wrote: » but what about the small schools thing? Now I know its a hot potato but it annoys me that there are small schools down the road from big primary schools yet they claim they can't close. Why not? because the majority are church of Ireland. Yet Quinn wants to take the Catholic part of schools away but won't stomach the shutting of tiny COI schools. Why not? I have seen a lot of these and I do feel the majority of kids can just go to another school. Procurement: Annoys the crap out of me when we can't buy stuff off amazon etc where I could get a lot of stuff for the school much cheaper. But no. Same with many other supplies, we are ripped off. The NPS contract, most of the stuff on it is rubbish and you end up buying more of it. I don't see the Govt tackling insurance costs etc. Or actually amalgamating the VECs, just talking about it.
rainbowtrout wrote: » Yep, there are far too many small primary schools. In the town where I live and teach there are three primary schools, the boys school, the girls school and the COI school. We also take students in my secondary school from all the small primary schools within roughly a 10 mile radius yet this coming September we will still only have an intake in the low to mid 60s. A good year would be 80-90. Aside from the one COI school in the town none of the others in the catchment are COI. I just looked up the enrolment for the three schools in the town Girls: 214 (mixed to first class) Boys: 89 (second class onwards) COI: 19 The ironic thing is that some parents in the town were sending their children to the COI school because they thought the other schools were too rough, not as good etc etc. If schools were made non denominational there would be no need for three schools in the town. One large coed school would be enough.
doc_17 wrote: » The government may feel they have no alternative other than cutting pay. it could be either that or scapping things like TY and getting kids to start a year later (remember that report that came out last year). If growth is lower they'll have to cut and they'll be reluctant to hit the PTR as it will impact on subject choice
Powerhouse wrote: » While it seems irrefutable that larger schools create economies of scale, the only difficulty is that if closing small schools or amalgamating a few schools require building/equipping new premises or renting pre-fabs for the extra students there might be a significant false economy involved. I just have a premonition of some future report telling us that not a penny was saved.
doc_17 wrote: » Didn't O'Rourke say that 80% of the budget of 8.5 Billion goes on teacher pay? Surely that figure is correct? That means 6.8 Billion is on teachers' pay? Say at most there are 75000 teachers in the country then thats how much each? €91000? And all those PT teachers on 10 hrs? Really Colm? Oh it must be true because you are a Princiapl! The pay figure includes paying retired teachers pensions.
TheDriver wrote: » and also remember tha vast percentage that goes back into the Govt coffers anyways so lets say you save 1bn on pay where they would get 41% tax, USC etc on it and give it in grant money where you get at most 21% VAT, so in essence cutting pay and giving it to other sections isn't the massive saving
spurious wrote: » Amalgamated schools does not always mean they have to be on the one site. A bigger school could have two DPs, so there could always be someone 'in charge' of each building. There would be a timetabling issue where the school was in two or more buildings, but 20 years ago I worked in a school which was in two different locations - it's not impossible. I can see safety issues with smaller children travelling, so it might not be ideal for primary schools, but teenagers can easily walk one end of the town to another.
doc_17 wrote: » Didn't O'Rourke say that 80% of the budget of 8.5 Billion goes on teacher pay? Surely that figure is correct? That means 6.8 Billion is on teachers' pay? Say at most there are 75000 teachers in the country then thats how much each? €91000? And all those PT teachers on 10 hrs? Really Colm? Oh it must be true because you are a Princiapl! This is the type of crap that enrages me when I hear it unchallenged. Newstalk were delighted when they could find someone inside the system who would spout their message. A bit like Fox "news" in the states. Get a Democrat who agrees with the Republican and wheel him out in front of everyone so it's indirectly attacking them, ie getting someone else to do it for you. Maybe he might have meant to say 80% goes on salaries and pensions of all the people who work/used to work in Irish education. But the point is, he was wrong and he was unchallenged when he was.
Musicmental85 wrote: » I didn't want to start another thread but thought it might interest people to know that the following quote is taken from the latest OECD report on education: "The salaries of teachers and other education staff account for the largest proportion of current expenditure in all countries. In OECD countries, expenditure on compensation accounts for an average of 79% of current expenditure on primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education combined." pg 274 So despite what the media and Ruairi quinn would have you believe the fact that 80% of the budget (also disputed as incorrect but that's addressed in a previous post) would still not even bring us out of line with Europe.
