Today was a day which appeared to focus on educational issues nationally.
Unions
At the Irish National Teachers Organisation’s (INTO) annual conference in Cork, Education Minister Ruairí Quinn called on all assembled members to accept Croke Park II proposals, asking teachers to be brave and work for nothing. ( See pay scales Here. )
The INTO Unions general secretary Sheila Nunan told Education Minister Ruairi Quinn that “Taking the knife to education sells the next generation short.” Ruairí Quinn was shouted down on a number of occasions, as delegates held up red cards and later the Government was accused of failing to offer newly-qualified teachers anything other than unemployment and emigration.
It was a similar story at the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) annual meeting. Here the Education Minister was heckled and jeered. ASTI President Gerry Breslin on the other hand received a lengthy standing ovation when he called for a rejection of the Croke Park II deal.
The Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) last week had already overwhelmingly voted against the Croke Park deal.
Educate Together
Twenty three primary schools across this Republic are set to lose their Catholic Church patronage, choosing possibly to transfer to the multi-denominational Educate Together system of education. The move follows Department of Education surveys of parents in 38 areas, whose children were aged up to 12 years, as part of the drive to provide so called plurality and choice in the types of primary schools in Ireland. Parents expressed a preference for an Educate Together patron in only 20 of the 38 areas surveyed. Two towns possibly will see Community National Schools established, run by the local VEC.
In County Tipperary; Clonmel & Nenagh have opted for Educate Together type education, while Thurles Town & Tipperary Town showed insufficient demand for any change whatsoever to their present existing high quality educational primary school regime.
It would appear however that twenty three primary schools across the Irish Republic seem to have forgotten, that were it not for the educational patronage of both Protestant & Roman Catholic Churches in the early 1800’s, most of us would still be living in the Stone Age.
It would appear also that Education Minister Ruairí Quinn is intent on “fixing that which is not yet broken,” and if his current education plans continue to include the closing of schools with fewer than 4 teachers is implemented, with the exception of larger cities, not one Protestant ethos school will exist in the Rural Ireland of 2020.
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