Pesky Public Pensions

Posted on May 9, 2017 by johnkilleagh

Those pesky public sector workers. Them and their pensions are costing us money, and we need to sort it out.

Of course their unions are going to stand up for them, they are entitled to do so.

So runs the core of the argument by Paschal Donoghue, the minister for Public Expenditure.

It is now nearly nine years since the infamous bank guarantee, and we will be paying the cost of that mistake for years to come. That mistake, on top of a property bubble and a global financial crisis created a financial crisis in Ireland that has cost us in an obvious business level, but also cost Ireland as a society: one just needs to look at the trolly crisis in hospitals, the cutting of resources in the Gardaí, in schools, in the broader public service.

It may have got old to say this by now, but the people being made to pay for the crisis were not the ones who created it. The ongoing cost of the bank guarantee alone was something like €60 billion euro, with the interest costing approximately €1 billion every year. And yet, despite not being the ones to cause this crisis (it’s not over as we’re still paying the costs), members of the public service are still expected to suffer penalties.

For a while now the Fine Gael line has been that the public service bill is too high, and was part of the problem. And so, the public sector took some brutal pay cuts and changes to conditions in order to help the country as a whole deal with the mess that we, as a society, were in.

That cost has proven to be huge.

People have died while waiting on trollies in hospitals.
A&E units are swamped, leading to longer waiting times with greater stress on patients and medical staff
School resources cut and pupil/teacher ratios increased leading to poorer outcomes for many students
Longer working hours across the public service, less pay, and even less pay for those unfortunate enough to get their jobs after 2011
Wives and partners of those serving in the Army forced to protest because the pay is so poor

And yet, even with all this, the minister decides to push the idea that the public service costs too much and that he needs to cut where he can – with pensions the focus of today’s agenda. Yes, we’ll finally reduce the pension levy, but must find a different way to get you to pay for the pensions. So, um, get rid of the levy so long as we can keep the levy?

For me, there’s a premise behind all of this. That the public service is a low-value cost, that should be cut where possible. It’s a premise that I refuse to accept.

The public service is an integral part of Irish society, and is an excellent investment.

Just look at the work done by so many people across so many different parts of the public sector.

Look at how hard our nurses and doctors work
Look at what teachers bring to and from their students
Look at the pride our navy has brought us from its mission in the Mediterranean

Fine Gael has managed to dominate the discussion of public sector pay by simplifying it to basic numbers. An effective and healthy public service is more than a simplistic stating of the blunt cost. The cost must be understood in context, and the value of what is achieved by the public service. There is great value in the work being done, and it is Fine Gael that is devaluing it.

Fair and Equitable?

Posted on November 3, 2016 by johnkilleagh

If one is to believe his appearances on news programmes recently, Our Dear Leader is a champion of all things ‘Fair and Equitable’. In the government’s current spat with the ASTI Enda Kenny has resorted to a regular set of phrases designed to make the ASTI position appear to be, simply unfair (and possibly inequitable).

It really is a genius piece of spin. Had we stayed within Lansdowne Road then younger members would benefit financially. However, this is “contingent on the introduction of certain reform measures” (have a look, paragraph 2 of the press release). This all glosses over the simple fact that even with this increase, new teachers (within Lansdowne Road) are still paid a substandard starting salary in comparison to their pre-2011 counterparts.

The government is excellent at trumpeting good news in a manner to hide underlying facts. The recent announcement regarding extra SNAs is really just a Cup and Ball Trick.

But I digress – Enda’s language got me thinking that if Fine Gael really is the arbiter of what’s fair and equitable in Education, then maybe FG policy is a shining example of how to treat the Education Sector with fairness. So let’s have a quick recap of FG policies in relation to Education:

Repeated cuts in School Capitation

Capitation is the basis for a school budget. Each school depends on capitation to pay the bills, hire the busses, get the books, repair the leaks, etc. While all schools have had their capitation cut – this is inequitable. Schools with a wealthier catchment area can rely on parents to subsidise some of the expenses. Schools in a disadvantaged simply don’t have this option.

Increase the Pupil Teacher Ratio

In a larger classroom students don’t get the same level of attention. It’s that simple. Anyone who is claiming that a larger P/T ratio does not affect students is either untruthful or deluded. Students benefit when their teacher can pay attention.

Get rid of Guidance Counsellors

It’s not easy to discern what you want to do with your life, and how to pick the best subjects and college courses for you. That’s the job of guidance counsellors, and apparently one that the Government thinks we can do without. Sure, they’ll argue that schools can now allocate resources as they see fit. Really? The choice is no guidance counsellor or yet larger class sizes. Unless the school has the wealthier catchment area, in which case it may have the resources to fund a guidance counsellor.

Reduce supports for students with Special Education Needs

Fewer SNAs, fewer resource teachers. Think about this one – the group of students with the greatest challenges in school have had their supports cut. How about that for fairness?

Strip resources for the National Educational Psychological Service (via the moratorium on employment)

NEPS provides huge support to schools. One facet of this support is assessment – schools get access to a NEPS psychologist, and can provide some assessments during the year. (Well, since the cuts, that now means ONE assessment for many schools). Again, this is inequitable – some families can afford private assessments, some cannot.

Removal of middle management posts (Assistant Principal and Special Duties)

In any career people like to have the option of professional progression. The removal of posts has removed that option for the vast majority of teachers. Schools now depend on goodwill to get a number of jobs done – and this is putting more stress on principals and existing post holders.

Cut Teachers’ pay (in a number of ways – USC, Pension Related Deduction, Freeze increments)

Any teacher can look at his or her payslip and see all the extra deductions that are there. The PRD grates as we have always paid into our pension, and have viewed a pension as ‘deferred pay’. All workers suffer under the USC. For a number of years we have had increments frozen. The net affect of all of this is that teachers are still being paid less now than they were in 2007.

Cut Pay for the youngest teachers

I honestly don’t know exactly how this one happened. Some say that the unions sold out the younger workers, and others say that this cut was done under FEMPI, beyond the control of the unions. Maybe the unions were simply out-manoeuvred. The simple fact is that our younger colleagues are on an inferior scale, and our government is unwilling to accept the principle that NQTs are entitled to equal pay for equal work.

Cut the rates and allowances for working for the State Examinations Commission

Just about every teacher has worked for a while correcting exams. My first time doing it I was told I was about to undertake ‘the best inservice training ever’. And it was. The money was also pretty good. However that has all been cut -and a number of experienced teachers have given up. Come June and you will find the SEC posting ads for some positions that have not yet been filled.

Cut mileage and conference allocations

Attending conferences is good for professional development. However, new rules mean that many of these conferences now take place on weekends, and any allowances for getting there are cut. The fact that the conferences are still taking place is a testament to the professionalism of teachers who are giving up free time to improve their professional practice.

Change the sick pay entitlements

Nobody wants to get sick – but it is nice to know that if you get sick then there is a safety net to help. However the length of time this support is in place for has been cut. Something that adds to the worry and stress of any teacher facing a serious illness.

Add to all of this we have a Taoiseach who has repeatedly been unwilling to give a straight answer to the question if he would be prepared to accept the principle of equal pay.

So, it’s a bit rich when Enda talks about his government working constantly for what’s ‘Fair and Equitable’. His policies speak far louder than his words. Fine Gael has overseen years of cuts in education and appears to have no intention to reverse these cuts. Fairness and Equality have nothing to do with their policies. The only thing that seems to matter is to balance a budget.

Stand Up

Posted on October 4, 2016 by johnkilleagh

People who read this blog may know that I am no fan of Fine Gael. Since their landslide victory in 2011 they have pursued an agenda that has led to terrible hardship amongst the poorer members of society.

Homelessness is on the rise, we still have direct provision, the health service is on its knees, we have multiple new taxes, and public servants (in the truest sense of that term) have had to make huge sacrifices For The Good Of The Country. We were sold this sacrifice ‘For The Good Of All’, for the good of the country, and shur, dontcha know that it’s only temporary and we’ll get your pay back as soon as we can.

Well, weren’t we in for the surprise.

Across the public service workers were implicitly accused of being ‘unproductive’. Apparently the cure for this was to cut staffing levels and ask everyone to work an extra 33 hours per year for free. Please feel free to define ‘Productivity’ as it applies to doctors, nurses, gardai, or teachers.

Add to this the slashing of budgets, the degradation of working conditions, and a concerted media campaign have ensured a demoralised public service. Let us not forget the fear factor. FEMPI has been waved as a stick to go with the elusive carrot in negotiations.

Some of what has been done is reprehensible. The different pay scales for new entrants is abhorrent. It has also been used to drive a wedge into the unions.

You see, despite the claims that the unions have sold out their junior members, I think that its more simple and more depressing than that. The government negotiators outmanoeuvred the unions. I do believe the unions should have taken up the fight for young members a lot sooner.

However, as the saying goes, if the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.

The unions are finally standing up for their younger members – and in some cases the fight is about restoring pay to pre-2008 levels.

And the government are going to fight this tooth and nail. Just look at the use of FEMPI against ASTI members following the rejection of the latest agreement.

For whatever ideological reason, some branches of the media are backing up the government on this. In the Independent today Eddie Molloy argued that giving into the unions would ‘hurt us all’. Of course he used far more emotive language. Also today the editorial in the Indo refers to the GRA pay claims as ‘Brinkmanship‘, and that it ‘holds us all to ransom.

This stuff is hard to stomach. Across the public service employees have faced sub-standard wages for the bones of a decade. And yet now that we are told that the recession is over, now that we have been asked to ‘keep the recovery going’, now that the central bank can say that government finances are 1/2 billion ahead of target (again), now we are accused of being selfish.

Now is the time for the unions to stand together and fight for reversals of the cuts that have plagued the public service. Of course there are differences of opinion within the unions. We are democratic organisations and difference is healthy. But enough is enough. We need to fight the government and its anti-public service agenda.

And don’t buy the indo.

Edit:

I love this piece on Capuchin monkeys rejecting pay inequality:

A Lonely Road

Posted on September 5, 2016 by johnkilleagh

So here we are at the start of a new year – still fighting the inequalities that were imposed on younger teachers in 2011/2012.

Currently, teachers are paid according to three different pay-scales. Yup. Just because any colleague of mine that had the misfortune to take up a contract a few years later than I did he/she would receive less pay for the same work.

Not only that, he/she will not receive any allowance for achieving excellence in their degree. (and let’s not forget that instead of a H.Dip.Ed, new teachers need a Professional Masters in Education – 2 years in college, and all the extra expense that second year adds up to)

You may remember that last Easter the issue of different pay scales was raised at the various conferences of the Teacher Unions. The ASTI (of which I’m a member) gave a mandate that should the Government not address the issue of inequal pay by the end of August, then the union should take further action.

August is now behind us, and our newer colleagues still receive less pay for equal work.

The ASTI announced here that the union is to ballot members on taking strike action.

I’m proud that our union is taking this stand, and I will be more than happy to stand on the picket line to support my colleagues. (I know I’m assuming the result will be for a strike)

Yes, this will hit me in the pocket, but it is the right thing to do. However much I have lost in pay (and I have lost a lot over the past 8 years), I am still better off than my colleagues. This is beyond unfair – it is simply unjust, and must be fought.

Of course this won’t be easy. At the moment only the ASTI is taking on this fight. It’s going to be a lonely road.

And the government is ready to fight back. Just look at the ferocity of the government’s reaction to the ASTI decision to not do any more Croke Park hours:

A threat not to pay increments in pay that are due
A threat to not pay for Supervision & Substitution (one of the cuts made early in the crisis)
A threat to deny new teachers a Contract of Indefinite Duration after 2 years of service.

Don’t think that the Government will accept the ASTI strike action and simply remove the 3 tier pay system. They have the hated FEMPI, and they have shown they are willing to use it. Expect them to retrench and hope to wear down the union. Because if teachers get pay scales restored for new entrants then there are a lot of other members of the public service (who are also suffering) who will want to follow suit.

The INTO and TUI have their own battles trying to improve the lot of new entrants:

The INTO has given this update on their negotiations. (in brief, the issue has not been resolved)
The TUI has given this update on their meetings with government negotiators. (and they also have nothing resolved)

The other teaching unions may at some point decide that protracted negotiations are not getting new teachers any closer to an equal and just payscale, but in the meantime ASTI members may feel very alone on the picket line.

The ASTI and I – Convention 2016

Posted on April 9, 2016 by johnkilleagh

This Easter I went to the annual Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland’s Annual Convention. It was my first time going, and it was a bit of an eye opener.

There was a reasonable amount of Media Coverage of the whole event – but some themes were not covered fully, and I thought I’d expand on a few ideas.

So – What are my thoughts on the whole thing?

A LOT of Paper

In advance of the conference I received the following documents:

The minutes and report of the 2015 Convention
The Statement of Accounts
Convention Reports (basically reports from different bodies dealing with a number of issues in Education)
The Convention Handbook (agenda, standing orders, members attending, etc)

The impression one gets before the convention even starts is that a lot happens at convention. It feels a little overwhelming, with lots of areas to be dealt with.

Terrible, really terrible, timekeeping

Us teachers can be strict lot when it comes to timekeeping. You come late to my class then I’m going to mark you late. If I’m clamping down, I may even take those five or ten minutes back, and detain you during your (and mine) lunch break.

The same doesn’t seem to apply to convention. The first afternoon began twenty minutes late, with pretty much every session thereafter beginning 30 minutes late. By the end of the convention we had lost about 2 hours of time. I personally found this incredibly frustrating. I tweeted about this during the convention and got a great reply:

It’s one thing to be frustrated just by the loss of 2 hours time, (a guess on my part – did anyone keep track?), but it’s another issue entirely when motions that are due to be discussed get skipped totally. On Thursday 31st two motions (62 & 63) were skipped. These motions related to Continuous Professional Development – an important part of any professional’s development. And they were skipped, binned, deferred. This need not, should not, have happened.

The Big Issue – Newly Qualified Teachers

The earliest votes were the most emotive. On Tuesday we debated the issue of pay for NQTs. There were some great (and emotional) contributions from teachers who are new to the profession, and are being penalised for this. Estimates for the difference in pay put the difference at 22%.

We were unanimous in the principle – equal pay for equal work. There was tangible emotion in the room at what has been done to younger teachers. The name I would put on that emotion is anger. Some directed at the Government, and some directed at the Union itself.

Many people believe that the management of the public service unions sold out new members in allowing these cuts to happen.

The President and General Secretary of the union did address this and state that they didn’t sell out- this particular cut had been set up by Fianna Fail in the run up to the Troika arriving on our doorstep.

I don’t know the facts, but I suspect the statements by the union leadership won’t stop the fingers from pointing in their direction.

What I do know is the strength of feeling. We were voting for strike action, and everyone felt strongly that this was a worthwhile cause. We felt that it’s worth losing some pay in order to show solidarity for our colleagues. We felt that this was the right thing to do. (This turned out to be an issue that we would refer back to many times over the course of the convention)

The unity of purpose in this wasn’t lost on some of the journalists present:

Some Other Issues –

Croke Park Hours

The ASTI rejected the Landsdowne Road Agreement in a ballot of members. As the Haddington Road Agreement will expire in June 2016, we then intend to not do the 33 hours of Croke Park any more.

These hours of meetings have been described as ‘Teachers’ detention’, but behind the light tone of that term, the hours have been responsible for sucking goodwill out of many staffrooms. It is hard to escape the perception that, in telling teachers to do 33 hours of meetings outside of school time, the Government is displaying a lack of trust in teachers; that teachers do no work outside of classroom hours.

Superannuation

That’s a pension scheme, don’t you know. Prior to Budget 2011, the pension for teachers was based on the final year of salary. Following Budget 2011 the pension for a teacher was based on a career average. This posed a number of problems:

The average would inevitably drag down the level of pension that a teacher would get
Many teachers are on sub-standard contracts (less than full time). Their career income will be so low as to further reduce their pension level.
Following various cuts, new teachers have an income far lower than their colleagues who were lucky enough to receive contracts before 2011. Again, their pension would be cut.
Now that Posts of Responsibility have been cut, the chances for teachers to climb a ladder have been cut. This also affects their earnings – so any career average will be hurt.

It seems that newer teachers are being hit on a number of fronts. Hit their wages, hit their conditions, hit their pension when they finally get to retirement.

Well, at convention we voted to develop a campaign to restore proper pension rights for all teachers.

Ex-Quota Guidance

I have argued that one of the cuts that has hit disadvantaged students more is the removal of ex-quota guidance counsellors. As with many other actions, we voted overwhelmingly to chase a reversal of this decision.

Posts of Responsibility

I mentioned above that Posts of Responsibility have been cut. This effectively means that teachers have very little chance of promotion during their careers. Many teachers like the opportunity to take on more responsibility – to contribute in a different way to the life of their school.

We have voted to reinforce the union instruction for members not to undertake the work of posts unless they are paid for it.

An Overview

Many of the issues that we discussed were those that arose following various cuts by the government: Guidance counsellors; pay scales; pension rights; posts of responsibility; sick leave; qualifications allowances; allowances for correcting state exams; supervision and substitution payments.

It strikes me that we have spent a lot of energy fighting to reverse the damage done by numerous cuts. So, here’s a radical idea. If you want to reform in Education – invest properly in it.

EDIT:

I personally believe that the fight to support Newly Qualified Teachers should be at the top of our agenda as a profession and as a union.

The cut put on the (mostly) youngest members of our profession is unjust and must be fought. I’m not looking forward to losing a day (or more) of pay – but it is the right price to pay.

Labour & FG. Supporting Inequality

Posted on February 18, 2016 by johnkilleagh

A lot of us remember the gloomy days near the end of the previous government. Brian Cowen was in power, and was denying anything was wrong – even though every economic commentator was warning of a crash. The optimists, God Bless ’em, were talking about a soft landing.

Around this time I became politically active for the first time in my life. I joined FG, I canvassed for my local guy, went to the meetings and did my part.

My part included believing that FG would be good for people across the country. They had a plan for free health-care, for better services, to turn the economy around.

It all ended as so many love affairs do. With Disillusionment on one side, and confusion (What did I do wrong?) on the other. I left Fine Gael in 2013.

As we face the final week of the latest General Election Campaign, I’ve decided that I cannot give a #1 to Fine Gael or Labour.

And why? Well, I see inequality has greatly increased during the tenure of this government. And, rather than put that in vague terms, lets look at how far this inequity has spread. You see, despite the claims that the recession is over, Austerity still rules in Education.

In Education the cuts of the past 5 years have been brutal. But these cuts have not hit everyone equally.

School budgets have been repeatedly cut

But if you go to a school in a middle-class area, then the school can ask for “voluntary contributions” that will go a long way towards making up the shortfall. In a poorer area schools don’t have this option, or at least the amount that they could legitimately ask for is far less. So, a school in a disadvantaged area will be hampered in what it can offer its students.

Students with Special Educational Needs.

These students are hit in two ways. The most obvious is that the number of Special Needs Assistants was cut. The criterion were tightened up. Think about this. These students are already disadvantaged, and this particular cut could only affect those who were already at a disadvantage.

The other way in which these students were affected is in the area of class sizes. Prior to 2007 secondary schools operated with maximum class sizes of, usually, 24. Very often this maximum is exceeded, with class sizes of 27, 28. At primary level it’s worse, with class sizes of over 30 being relatively common. Again, those at an educational disadvantage are hit hardest by this. Think of trying to give individual attention to a child with dyslexia when you have 27 other students to keep engaged. Certainly they may have ‘access’ to an SNA, but the reality is that the same SNA may be working with a number of students across different class groups.

Access to Educational Supports

How do you know if someone has dyslexia? Their teacher may suspect it, based on a student’s written work. But a teacher’s word is not enough to get access to an SNA. No, for that you need a report from an Educational Psychologist. The National Educational Psychological Service provides these assessments. And this assessment goes to the DES to get access to an SNA approved. But guess what? NEPS have had their resources cut as well. So a given school will be allocated a certain number of assessments each year – and students with needs may have to wait longer – and fall behind further – because of a lack of funding.

Being Ireland there’s always a back-door. If you can afford it you could get your child a private assessment , then that assessment will work for the DES. Those who are better off are less affected by the cuts.

Student Supports

One of the bluntest instruments used by the current government was getting rid of Guidance Counsellors. Another was the removal of posts of responsibility. These posts provided teachers with the option of taking on extra responsibilities in a school, and getting paid for them. Year Heads, Programme Coordinators, Special Duties. They are all being cut, and other teachers have to pick up the slack, or the buck is passed onto school managers who are already being overloaded. But, if you are in a school that can afford it, the Trustees will find some extra money to provide the needed supports for students.

This is nothing against these trustees. They are doing the right thing by their students. It’s just that schools in poorer areas often don’t have these resources.

I could go on. And on. The point is that even though the same cuts have been applied across the country, the cuts have had a greater affect on the poorer among us. Simply because they don’t have the safety blanket of spare money.

Suffice to say I’ve been disillusioned.

I look at the parties vying for my vote, and I find it easy to dismiss lots of them.

From what I can see only one party is actually talking properly about reversing some of the damage done to the public service. That party is the Social Democrats. I’ll be voting #1 for them.

As for #2, I’m open to suggestions!

Standing up to the Pesky Unions

Posted on April 9, 2015 by johnkilleagh

Well done to our Minister for Education, Jan O’Sullivan.

She has had the guts to face down the Secondary School Teachers Unions and is pushing ahead with the pet project of her predecessor Ruairi Quinn. (Junior Cert Reform, with teacher assessment)

So, she has faced down our strikes, and is holding fast. So she has courage – well done, Minister, take a bow. Her stand is all the more impressive as she is adamant that all this for the good of the students.

Let’s ignore for a moment the implicit bit that suggests that teachers are not interested in students.

Instead let’s celebrate that we have a minister who is willing to stand up to vested interests. A minister who is willing to risk popularity in order to do the right thing for students.

Therefore…

Minister, I look forward to the day when you will do the following to support our students:

Reduce class sizes. This is an incredibly simple measure, but one that has a huge impact on the dynamics of any classroom. I wrote before about how my daughter was for a time in a class of 34. This is a ridiculous situation and one that should never be allowed to happen. This does have the downside of costing money, but the minister has assured us that the evaluation farce was not about money, so maybe there’s room for maneuver. Call me cynical, but I won’t hold my breath.

Restore Guidance Counsellors. This is another incredibly simple measure, and again has a huge impact on students. Our guidance counsellors do incredible work with students. Apart from the obvious help in subject and college choice, guidance counsellors sit with students in times of crisis. Again, this one would happen to cost money, but I’m sure that the minister will stand up for what’s right, yes? Actually no.

Restore School Budgets. Again, a simple thing to do. Schools get a budget to operate, and this budget is based on the number of students enrolled. For the past few years this budget has been cut, with a further 1% cut due in September. Another simple thing to reverse. But again this isn’t about the money, is it?

Restore resources for Students with Special Educational Needs. Another simple thing. Really, isn’t this not only simple but ethical? Are those with special needs already at enough of a disadvantage in educational terms?

Have an effective budget for book rental schemes, and IT in the classroom. OK. This is more complicated, and requires some real thinking and procedures to go into place. Some real work required here. But it is so necessary. Books are incredibly expensive, and each new school year brings stress to many families trying to dig out extra money for books and uniforms.

As regards IT – there is no cohesive policy, and what you get from school to school can vary radically. So our students do not have a level playing field when we talk about ICT in the classroom, and technology in education generally.

So, so much is just about money, and we have a minister who is willing to stand up to others. So surely she’ll stand up for these principles?

Surely, now that the Minister has shown her mettle in standing up to the unions she will show equal courage standing up to the bean counters? She will stand up to those who have a view that education can be budgeted down to the minimum possible, and then blame the teachers for failing?

But let’s be honest – the minister is showing little enough care for the reality of life for so many students from disadvantaged areas. It is about the money, and there’s no point in pretending anything different. The Minister is failing us, is failing our students – and trying to shift the blame.

Doublespeak

Posted on February 2, 2015 by johnkilleagh

George Orwell’s ‘1984’ scared me. Yes for the references to Big Brother, and yes, for all the totalitarian references and the image of a world at war.

But 1984 also scared me for the concept of ‘Doublethink’. Orwell nailed it when he had his politicians twist words so as to make their constituents think whatever it was they were supposed to think.

One who had displeased the party became a ‘nonperson’ and all reference to them was wiped out; the Ministry of Peace tested hand grenades on prisoners; and newstalk was used to indoctrinate the population.

The book is listed as fiction, but seems to have been taken as an instruction manual in the political life of ‘The Best Small County In The World To Do Business’.

Take our successive Education Ministers. To listen to them, life is only getting better for our students, and they think that we should be happy to swallow their bitter pill. I think they are hoping for a version of the last line of 1984 where the protagonist, Winston, ‘loved big brother’

Why am I even talking like this? Lets take a few examples.

Guidance Counsellors.

Guidance Counsellors, for decades, were an important part of Irish schools. Guidance Counsellors have helped hundreds of thousands of students in subject choice, college choice, and ultimately, career choice. But that is only part of the work they do.

For years now Guidance counsellors have also done a huge amount of counselling work. They have helped students who have suffered abuse, bullying, depression, suicidal thoughts, rape. They have supported, they have referred and they have grieved.

And just like that the government got rid of them. 2 years ago in the budget. Hidden in the nitty gritty, with the stroke of a pen.

And now that we are told the recession is over, Minister O’Sullivan has no plans to reinstate guidance. And she calls this good news. She believes “that it is desirable to give schools some discretion on how to use these increased resources” . She conveniently forgets to mention that to put in guidance, schools need to lose a teacher in another area. But that’s ok, because the schools have discretion.

It’s pure Doublethink. Change the story, and repeat it so much that you believe it yourself. Minister O’Sullivan also referred to the 2015 budget as being the first budget increase in Education in many years. More Doublethink.

Why?

Here’s the spin. Yes, there is an increase in funding, but it’s in the capital spend. There has been a raft of new building measures proposed (because we love property). This extra capital is only to ensure school buildings meet increased population demands. This extra spend does nothing to improve pupil/teacher ratios. It does nothing to reverse cuts to those who have special needs.

The downside of the budget is that it was published in a year that schools have their capitation budgets cut, and have been promised, wait for it, another cut next September.

So the Minister talks about an increase in the Education Budget and hopes that we all forget the ongoing cuts and buy the party line.

Sadly, in our media driven society, those who can keep their message going loudest and longest will be the ones remembered. Successive Ministers for Education seem to have taken this lesson to heart.

Now You See It…

Posted on October 15, 2014 by johnkilleagh

If you’re anything like me, you love Derren Brown. He’s a bit of a genius, illusionist, mentalist, clever and challenging.

He’s also a bit of a trickster.

He has one particular move I like, he gets the unsuspecting victim to willingly hand over his wallet. Just like this:

Which brings me to this RTE headline yesterday. On the face of it, things look great. 1,700 new teachers and SNAs (Special Needs Assistants) to be employed in Irish Schools. All good, yes?

Well, as always, it’s a little more complicated. While the headline does grab your attention, the details of the article take a lot of the shine away:

10,000 new students entering primary level each year
4,000 new students entering second level each year
The cost of college registration to increase. Again.
The budget for new schools (needed for the extra numbers) is to be cut by €10,000,000
Funding for second level schools (Capitation, the grant per student in school) is being reduced again. This time by 1%
Funding for third level colleges also to be reduced by 1%

That’s the new cuts.

There’s still no reverse on the reprehensible decision to remove guidance counsellors from secondary schools. No decision to restore middle management in schools.

For years now the budget for education has been cut. The new posts in the headline don’t do anything to change the pupil/teacher ratio – it only maintains the current crazy level. Schools have been forced to cut subjects, options, programmes and supports for students.

These are not cuts in education. They are attacks on education.

Minister Joan Burton was on Matt Cooper’s show a few weeks ago and said something like ‘Austerity is over’.

Austerity is not over. Certainly not if you’re in education. And just like Derren Brown, the government has managed to dip into the pocket of the education sector once more.

Through The Cracks

Posted on September 24, 2014 by johnkilleagh

There has been a lot of talk in the media over the past few days about the crisis in the health system in Ireland. Things are pretty grim.

According to the Irish Examiner, waiting lists have soared 968%. In other words, if you are on a waiting list, you wait almost 10 times as long now to be seen.

And this is scary. But it is not the full picture.

As a culture we are still hesitant to discuss mental health. As a result, we don’t get the full picture of the difficulties faced by so many people in crisis.

According to Aware, up to 10% of young people suffer from depression at any one time (my emphasis)

According to this document from the CSO, in 2005/2006 there were 335,134 students in second level education (see p.115)

If we put these numbers together, you have approximately 35,000 second level students suffering from depression at any given time. I find this a very upsetting statistic. Not just for the fact of the depression that the students are battling, but for the fact that we have so few resources to help the students in need.

Schools themselves have limited resources. In an incredibly callous display of disregard for students, our former minister, Rurai Quinn removed guidance counsellors from schools. (It remains to be seen whether our new minister, Jan O’Sullivan will reverse this decision)

I don’t want to give the impression that schools should be the place to fix these issues. A school’s function is to educate students. Schools are not places to treat issues around mental health, just as schools are not places to treat broken bones or other physical ailments. Schools can run programmes to promote mental health, but if you’re sick – then you need a doctor.

However, just as schools can provide support for students with broken bones and other physical ailments, they are also places that can provide support for those in pain.

Or at least they could if they had the resources in place. With all the staff cutbacks (especially that to guidance counsellors) schools are hard pressed to do all that is expected of them.

No.

More is needed in supporting our teenagers in trouble.

We do have some excellent groups in Ireland, for example:

Aware is working to help those suffering from depression.
Pieta House works to help those who are suffering from suicidal thoughts or deliberate self harm
Console helps those suffering, either because they are thinking of suicide, or because someone close to them has died by suicide.

But our health system is not able to cope. We don’t have enough psychiatric beds to help those in serious pain. Our social workers are understaffed and overworked. Counselling via the health service has a huge waiting list.

In short, our mental health services are not serving our teenagers effectively.

It’s not just the teenagers who are left fall through the cracks.

In this article the Irish Times highlights that 554 people in Ireland died from suicide in 2011. We all know families who have been devastated by the loss of someone they love.

As a society we need to do a lot more to look out for those around us. We need to do a lot more to look out for those who fall through the cracks.