EDUCATION:IT COST the State €30 million to correct and supervise exams and second-level teachers should be obliged to correct as part of their contract, with no extra remuneration, Young Fine Gael have said.
Some €16 million was spent on correcting, and teachers facing pay cuts in upcoming budgets could opt to correct exams, the party meeting heard from delegates.
The motion calling for mandatory corrections by teachers was narrowly passed at the 120-delegate summer school, now named after the late Garret FitzGerald, in Killarney at the weekend. Those opposing the motion, among them several teachers, said corrections proved an important income stream for teachers who did not get paid during the summer.
It was among a number of motions on education. The idea of a graduate tax was overwhelmingly passed. However, a motion calling for State funding of private schools to be retained was defeated.
Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn was referred to as “a commie” during the lively debate.
Also passed was a motion calling for marijuana to be legalised but “strictly for medicinal purposes” for use by terminally or critically ill patients for pain relief.
The graduate taxation system was the fairest and most viable means of funding third-level education, the meeting heard.
Standards in Irish universities had dropped with Trinity and UCD no longer now among the world’s top 100 universities and new ways of funding were needed.
Some 46 per cent of those going to third level were in receipt of grants, and a Government loan would be a better system, opponents said.
A seminar on tourism heard calls from MEP Seán Kelly for investment in roads and other infrastructure no longer needed since the downturn to be put into creating tourism facilities.