TEACHER'S PET: We all know how Mary Hanafin likes to "work the bar" during the teacher conferences, mingling and chatting with delegates. But the Minister was less than pleased when INTO president, Sheila Nunan, exhorted delegates to buttonhole her on the issue of class size.
Result? Teacher after teacher squared up to the Minister in the bar of the Great Southern Hotel in Killarney to deliver their tale of woe on class size - and much else beside. Hanafin, we hear, was not impressed that an essentially social occasion had been undermined in this way. INTO members are unrepentant, saying that Ministers are "never off duty." Don't ask us who is right here. Just don't expect Mary Hanafin to grace the bar at the INTO conference in Cork next year.
Speaking of the Great Southern Hotel in Killarney, the INTO general secretary John Carr (right) was cheered by delegates when he lamented that the hotel was being sold. There is loose talk that hundreds of apartments will be built on the site. This fine, elegant hotel never managed to make much in the way of profit and its demise is probably inevitable. But is it a case of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing?
You couldn't make it up. That major report on the Irish language due from Dr John Harris of St Pat's in Drumcondra will be published next month. Publication has been delayed because the Department of Education is waiting on the report to be translated into Irish. Incidentally, the report is very critical of Irish language standards in schools.
At last, the teacher unions are picking up on the issue of how some schools cherry-pick students and exclude less well off, disadvantaged and special needs children. To her great credit, Sheila Parsons of ASTI confronted the Minister on it at the union conference in Ennis last week. This cherry-picking is one of the real scandals of the Irish education sector. Here's a prediction; some day soon a parent will take one of these schools to court - and expose the whole elitist business.
Why all the surprise about the INTO's tough stance on school inspections? Teachers are right to be worried that they might be identified and, more importantly, subject to unfair criticism in the published inspection reports. Take a practical example. The inspectors criticise the maths department in one school - primarily because one teacher is under-performing. But why should the other teachers be subject to guilt by association? Mary Hanafin and John Carr (below) seem confident it will be sorted out speedily. Here's another prediction - it won't be easy.
Got any education gossip? E-mail us at teacherspet @irish-times.ie
