O’Keeffe’s special needs cuts hit the vulnerable again

A cut is not a cut if it’s indefensible decision. It seems that this government have given cuts such a bad name that now they deny that they are cutting. All they do is merely allocate scarce resources in a more equitable way! Nonsense, this is not about improving a child’s life chances, it’s about accountancy. Such an indefensible cut is the decision announced by Education Minister to remove some special needs education assistance from primary pupils using as bogus cover advice that the pupils benefit more by being in an ordinary class, even one that will be more over crowded from next September. It reminds me of the excuse offered by Minister Hanafin to justify her removal of disability allowance from 17 & 18 year olds. She said it prevented their entry into the workforce and claimed she was acting on the recommendation of voluntary groups.
Batt O’Keeffe has asked people not to cloud the issue with emotion. I agree so let’s deal with facts not ministerial spin. He rubbished the suggestion of his decision as being a cut. The pupils concerned are described by the Minister’s term “mild”. The type of child the minister is thinking about can have slow speech and language development, poor memory, limited attention span, emotional disturbance and visual or auditory impairment. Minister O’Keeffe finds it hard to believe that the INTO could want a teacher for just 3 or 4 such children. What he clearly doesn’t understand is that a teacher has a choice in classroom, either ignore these children and teach the class in which case they make no progress or else spend as much time with these children as possible and as a consequence the work and development of the class slows down.
The department already allocates funds through the General Allocation Model for each school with pupils who need learning support. The suggestion of schools being all the same and all doing the same thing is wide of the mark. Schools cannot be all things to all people, schools are encouraged by the Minister to specialise and provide services in their community. Indeed some schools who wanted to provide for pupils with either learning difficulties or for those who are gifted, experienced their own difficulties and were refused by the department citing duplication as some schools already provided that service in the community, some ironically now on the list released on Friday for a reduction in staff. Many of the schools on the list are schools that would be well known for their focus on helping pupils with a learning disability. I particularly note St Senans NS in Enniscorthy. This school has a fine tradition of providing for pupils with learning difficulties. Schools like this don’t need the Minister’s folksy potted logic on possible learning outcomes in already overcrowded classes. They need the Minister’s support. In reality these schools could have avoided these cuts if they ignored the needs of their pupils in the first place. In short they’re being shafted because they achieved and the Minister doesn’t want to pay the price and he’s hiding behind a report, just as Minister Hanafin hid behind the voluntary groups.
If a school can fill a class with 11 such pupils then the funding will remain in place. In total there’s 128 classes nationally with number below 11 with over 800 pupils involved and 128 teachers facing dismissal. Minister O’Keeffe denies that this cut is due to budgetary reasons, a claim backed up by Minister Willie O’Dea on radio over the week-end. This claim is mere spin and an insult to the parents, teachers but most of the children involved. In fact the bar, set at 9 by the Department of Education, has now been raised by the Minister to 11.The schools that identified the need for teaching pupils in a targeted approach must retain these supports.
Minister O’Keeffe has not published the advice on which he claims he’s working on. Minster O’Keeffe should explain why it is that classes of less than 11 are not in the pupil’s interest while those of 11 or more remain of benefit and schools with such will keep their allocation. He should also explain what will happen at second level schools that similarly target resources for pupils with mild learning difficulties. Will he now move against learning support and Special Needs Assistants in these schools too?
This cut is indefensible, the Minister must reverse it.

Labour Selects for Wexford Borough & County Council

Last Monday night saw the selection convention in Wexford Town of Labour candidates for the 2009 local elections to Wexford County Council and Wexford Borough Council. The convention was held in SIPTU’s new Corish Memorial Hall in Coolcotss Lane. The meeting was presided over by the Party Chairman Brian O’Shea TD from Waterford. There was a very big turn-out despite the closeness to Christmas.
The direction from head office was to select 5 candidates for WBC one of whom was to be a woman and for 3 from Wexford District, again one of whom is to be a woman. In the Borough we hold 5 seats out of 12, and Labour has a pact with the junior party on the council Fine Gael controlling the council since 2004. Tommy Carr has decided to retire after many years of service to the party and town and his replacement is Theresa Walsh. There were fulsome tributes paid to Tommy for his work down through the years. Each was well deserved.
7 candidates including offered themselves to the members. In addition to myself & Theresa being selected, Davy Hynes, Ted Howlin & George Lawlor will also pull on the Labour jersey for next June.In the county, Ted and George will run. Good Luck to all and hopefully next June will see once more another clean sweep. In the pot above is yours truly, Brendan and Brian while George joined us for the picture below.

Wexford lights up for Christmas

Probably the best house in Wexford if not the country for exterior lights must be Walsh's in Drinagh. Each November the owners start to prepare the lights and decorations, checking bulbs and motors for rotating lights. The money they collect goes to local charity. I visit each year and my kids get huge enjoyment out of it. The owners obviously get a kick too as they then purchase new features in January. They put them all away until after Halloween and then get things up and running. The interest in outside lights at Christmas is a relatively new phenomena at year’s end. It adds to the sense of enjoyment. The pictures tell it all. Visiting these lights is part of the run in to Christmas for my kids. This house turns on lights at night fall and off at 9PM. To visit take the N25 towards Rosslare from Wexford to the garden centre, turn left and drive 500M, house on left hand side of a narrow lane. Drive slowly watch out for children of all ages.

A modest proposal to shoot yourself in the foot

I had the opportunity last Friday to listen to RTE News at One and my ears pricked up when I heard Sean O’ Rourke say that he would be speaking to a principal who had the solution to teacher absenteeism. I’m all ears when it comes to problems and solutions so I pulled myself closer to the radio for the interview. A local principal who was a former General Election candidate for Fine Gael was supporting the Minster for Education in his efforts to tackle teacher absenteeism. His suggestion was that any teacher absent should be docked 20% of weekly pay if out for a day uncertified leave. Currently teachers are allowed 3 days uncertified sick leave.
The principal claimed he could spot clear trends in teachers being out on Mondays and claiming uncertified leave to attend weddings.
He felt it wasn’t a major problem but teachers should be held accountable for where they should be if not in class. I wonder was this view based on the premise that Batt O’Keeffe released figures that claimed 12,000 teachers were absent without certification on Mondays during the school year. These figures look like there’s a real problem here so lets take a closer look at Batt’s maths! Minster O’keeffe never specified whether he was talking about primary or secondary school.
Firstly there’s 40,000 teachers and 31 Mondays in the school year. So that’s 1.25M working days in the school year. As a percentage of this number of working days that means uncertified absenteeism in the sector on Monday is less than 1%. So that’s the extent of the problem. One feels that the only reason why these figures are being thrown out is to distract from the campaign against education cuts. Fianna Fail is trying to split teachers from parents and is using this information in an attempt to drive a wedge between them. I think if most managers could rely on 99% of their workforce showing up on Monday morning they’d be happy.

I know the Principal well having spent 3 years on the board of management as the VEC representative. Strangely in my time there he never mentioned a problem with absenteeism at the school and I don’t believe there is one. I think however if his proposal goes through there will be one. If a teacher is sick and has to go to a doctor each time they’re out then when the doctor asks how long will I make the cert out for you can bet the teacher will then say, “make it a week”. Teachers are no different to any worker and will of course max out on time allowed. And so human nature being what it is finds a way around the modest proposal of our retiring principal. It’s a shame that when a teacher is retiring that he takes an opportunity to have a pot shot at his fellow professionals who not just owe a loyalty to their principal but are entitled to a loyalty in return.