An insider's guide to education

Surprisingly, education issues hardly surfaced at last week’s meeting of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party in Athlone. Minister of Education Batt O’Keeffe briefedmembers on cuts, student fees and the rest, but there was a mood of weary resignation, rather than anger around the table. Increases in class sizes – last year’s burning issue – weren’t even on the agenda.

All of this has prompted speculation that the Government might be out of the woods on education. It could be that the protest campaign against education cuts peaked last year. Already, there are suggestions the teacher unions will find it hard to crank up the engine one more time over the coming winter. Certainly, there is little appetite for rebellion among rank-and-file teachers;many schools are already ignoring union directives on non co-operation with inspectors.

All of this means the education sector could face further swingeing cutbacks in the December Budget. Don’t rule out another increase in class size and more changes to the expensive substitution and supervision scheme for teachers.

- How come Liverpool’s star striker, Fernando Torres, has settled in so comfortably on Merseyside? In a recent interview with the Daily Mirror, Torres credited the Bray-based company Crofton Training, which has been working with El Nino since his arrival. Torres said Rob Healy and the team of English teachers provided by Liverpool were critical in helping him make the transition from Madrid to Penny Lane. “One of the things they used to make me do was ring people in response to adverts in the paper. You’d get on the phone and ask about a puppy for sale, or that kitten being advertised, or the price of a second-hand car.’’

So how come no one is helping Ireland boss Gio Trappatoni with his stumbling English?

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Batt O’Keeffe hopes to bring his options paper on new tuition charges to Cabinet during October. It should be a lively discussion, what with with three former educationministers – Mary Hanafin, Noel Dempsey and Micháel Martin – around the table.

O’Keeffe invited the former ministers to make written submissions to him on the issue before September 15th. It is not known how many responded, but a discussion paper on fees from Dempsey – the first minister with the courage to reopen the fees debate – would be fascinating.

- There was an interesting piece by Philip Collins in The Guardian recently about the much-lauded Finnish education model. The Finns regularly top international league tables on literacy and maths.

So what’s the secret? Apparently, they spend less than most developed countries on education – and they have some of the largest classes.

Instead, the Finns focus on attracting the very best teachers, with the number of available places deliberately limited to increase competition.

“Reducing class size requires more teachers,” Collins writes. “That means being less selective about who becomes a teacher, and allowing in candidates with poorer credentials . . . Reducing class size is always popular and always a bad idea.’’

Now, what will we tell the INTO?

- Those overblown claims for the new UCD/TCD Innovation Alliance are continuing to raise eyebrows.

UCD President Hugh Brady and TCD Provost John Hegarty – not to mention assorted Government luminaries – claim the alliance will deliver 30,000 jobs.

UCC’s Declan Jordan was sceptical of these claims, arguing in the Financial Times last week, that this “high risk gamble’’ would need a rate of new business start-ups vastly superior to the famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). What’s the prospect of that?

* Email us, in confidence, at teacherspet@irishtimes.com