An insider’s guide to education
A mixed week for Quinn
Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn was back in his Marlborough Street office at 8am last Thursday morning despite the rigours of the teacher conferences.
Quinn had a mixed week. That canny decision to release the report on school patronage on the eve of the conferences paid dividends; it allowed him rather than the teacher unions to set the agenda.
Quinn was also strong in explaining his overall education-reform package. And his decision to back teachers in that battle to protect lucrative allowance payments will win him friends – and head off a potential conflict.
That said, telling teachers they don’t understand the economic crisis was ill advised. Teachers don’t like being lectured.
He also appeared to give mixed signals on a key issue: the future of small schools. He stressed their vital part in the social fabric while also stressing that the status quo is not an option. Which is it?
And the mixed message is not just on small schools. Quinn has signalled his determination to push through his reform agenda across primary, second level and higher education.
But all of his talk about building consensus and partnership left some in the teacher-union leadership with the impression that he could just wilt under pressure.
Will he really press ahead with the closure of small schools when the heat comes on? How will he respond if the ASTI and the TUI cut up rough on exam reform?
Quinn is determined to leave a legacy. So far he is doing well. But his term of office is now entering a defining phase.
Lenny rocks the conference
Who’s the teacher’s pet when it comes to music? If the songs rolled out late at night at the teacher conferences are any guide, the septuagenarian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen is the darling. If we hear one more rendition of Hallelujah or So Long Marianne it will be one too many.
Songs from old favourites such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan and The Eagles were also to the fore, along with “new’’ hits from Coldplay and The Killers.
Who says teachers are not hip?
It was all fab, as Smashey and Nicey might say.
Focusing on their primary goal
One of the striking features of the INTO conference was the apparent lack of interest among most primary teachers in developments at second and third level.
While some aspects of Ruairí Quinn’s speech to delegates could be faulted, his presentation on reforms to the exam system and to higher education was excellent. But there was no sense in the hall that most delegates were interested in education reform per se.
That’s a shame – and a poor reflection on many primary teachers.
Count your Irish blessings
If teachers in Ireland think they have it bad, here’s an extract from an address by Marilyn Harrop, president of the National Union of Teachers at its annual conference in Torquay last week. Here’s how she summed up the workload of teachers in England:
“Pressure, more pressure, exam targets, league tables, more pressure, Ofsted, academies, free schools, forced academies, yet more pressure, no pay rise, job losses, bigger classes, fast-track capability procedures, attacks on pension provision, work until you’re 68, die at your loom – sorry, desk.”
Crikey.
It could never happen in Ireland – or could it?
Research standards dropping
To their shame, some key education figures are still, two years on, trying to pick holes in those OECD/Pisa studies that showed literacy and numeric standards dropping like a stone.
To his credit, Sean McDonagh, who consistently delivers terrific research papers, is having none of it.
McDonagh, a former member of the Expert Skills Group, highlights our below-average performance in maths in his latest paper, focusing in particular on the decline even among our top performers.
How come so much good topical research is coming from individual researchers?
And why are education departments in our third level colleges still underperforming in this key area?
Email sflynn@irishtimes.com
