Education in Ireland?

We pride ourselves in Ireland of having a top class education system.
"Experts" maintain that we shouldn't be too worried about the building boom collapsing, because our real strength is our knowledge, our graduates, our people.
Various people have been questioning these facts recently.
Let's see, take a look at the primary (compulsory schooling) sector...

Mary Hanafin, T.D. Minister of Education and Science talks a damn good talk, but that's all it is - talk.
Remember when she promised to double the capitation grants paid to schools? Easter 2007 that was. INTO Congress actually - where she did NOT get a standing ovation, remember, but some journalists claimed that she did. Less than 8 months later and that promise was shown to be a complete lie.

Remember the class size protests we had all of last Winter by the INTO, teachers, parents and CPSMA? Did Mary lower our shockingly high class sizes and pupil-teacher ratio? Did she heck as like, as they say on Corrie. She won't either, according to Budget 2007! Your child, in a class of 20 plus cannot succeed as well as he / she could in a class of less than fifteen. I know hundreds and hundreds of classes of 30 plus. Your child! It is shameful. Mary Hanafin has done a great disservice to our children. How do you feel about that? I am as mad as Hell, but I'm worn down, fed up.

Remember how she talks and talks about how she has ploughed millions into special educational needs (SEN) pupils, and really, she can't do everything!!? It was Micheal Martin who did that in 1999. Mary did give a few hundred extra SEN teachers in 2005, but let's take a closer look at that. She only gave the bare minimum. She only gave enough to keep herself and her Government out of the courts. For example, currently, a child with dyslexia has NO RIGHT to extra specialised teaching, neither do kids with a Mild Learning Disability (LD) - these children used to have two and a half hours (PER WEEK - half a measly hour a day) but Mr. Noel Dempsey T.D. took that away and Mary kept it away; children with Down's Syndrome get NOTHING; children with a Moderate Learning Disability (more severe than a mild LD which we used to call "mentally disabled" back in our unenlightened day) - these children get 3 hours (PER WEEK - less than 40 minutes a day); children with Autism are entitled to 5 hours of extra, specialised teaching (PER WEEK - one hour per day)... What happens to these kids for the rest of the school day, the rest of the week? It's an absolute disgrace. Don't listen to a single word she ever says again. Do not believe her.

Remember the school building projects that she keeps on announcing? 25 million here, 3 billion there? It's easy to announce these things, what people don't realise is that she regularly announces plans for the same schools every year for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years, but makes no move whatsoever to build feck all!!!! Don't believe her. Don't be fooled by her. The Summer Works Scheme which was brutal to work around gave help to many schools to put in new windows, build toilets etc... She invited applications under this scheme but then suddenly did away with it after Budget 2007. Schools had to employ engineers etc... at 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 plus thousand euro a go in order to meet with the stringent application process - who pays them now?? The scheme used to cover these fees. Mary is not sure yet she says.... Schools have not got this money.

Water charges. Remember them? Hot potato this week. Now pretty much dropped. She didn't give a tu'ppeny damn about schools going into debt to pay these bills until she was told in no uncertain terms (this week) by teachers, principals and the INTO that if she wanted them paid then she would have to give the funds to pay them!!! Schools do not have this kind of money. These are State schools. The State must fund them. They are not funding primary schools even half way properly. Any funds that are given are given in installments, the first in Jan / Feb; so schools have to try to survive Sept, Oct; Nov; Dec; Jan. and usually Feb. with ZERO!!! Did you know that? It's an impossible situation. That's why schools go cap in hand to parents - wrongly, I believe. Very wrongly. Refuse to raise one penny for your local school ever again. Don't bake for the cake sale. Don't buy a cake. Definitely don't send in money for photocopying, art, drama... whatever. Schools should not ask for your money. They are in a very tight corner financially, because Mary is very, very, very seriously underfunding primary schools in Ireland. You can help more by writing to her and giving her a piece of your mind than by sending in that twenty euro that your schol really has no right to beg from you. Do not give it. Do not collect the Tesco, Super Valu, Dunnes tokens. Write to Mary. Tell her to fund your school properly.

Listen to the forked tongue of Mary Hanafin with new ears from now on....