Will Telebs learn anything from their trip back to school?

It seems that someone called Breffny an unsuccessful contestant on a reality programme who didn’t win a 12 month temporary contract on a TV3 programme called “The Apprentice” is going back to school. Great! I hear you say as we all know that your life’s chances are much better if you re-educate.
However Breffny is going back because he is of the view that his experiences are of value to second level students and what’s more he’s bringing another contestant along to share their knowledge. Breffny grew up in Cork and was sent by his Mammy to Harvard because he tells us it’s the best university in the world. Breffny now has left science behind for a world of business and celebrity. Of course Breffny’s unique view doesn’t come cheap and for 30 minutes to an hour he’s charging pupils €5.

He’s clearly spotted a business opening in Irish schools for what he describes as lunch money. He thinks he can give advice on which college to go to despite the fact that he’s been privately educated and has never studied at an Irish university. Moreover he feels able to tell pupils how to deal with stress without any qualifications. Breffny thinks he’s a good role model for young people but I wonder exactly what his qualifications are in career guidance. His favourite quote is Gordon Gecko greed is good from “Wall Street”. Given that an average year at second level school has about 100 pupils that’s €500 between the pair for the benefits of 30 minutes worth of their wisdom. Moreover given that he says he’s off to 40 schools that’s €20K between the 2 for old rope.

Breffny is one of the new breed of TV created personalities who’re famous because he’s famous. They have a short life in the public eye, proving the Andy Warhol adage that everyone can be famous for 15 minutes. I’ve no ill feeling towards him, everybody has to make a few quid in a depression and he sounds a very resourceful fellow who hopefully will find full time employment in the near future however I genuinely wonder what unique knowledge he and his partner bring to schools given that most 6th years have already filled in their CAO forms, benefit from Career Guidance and often in my experience can teach those of us. Is it just that he’s trading on the naivety of teenagers who he thinks will cough up to inhale the air in the same room as him? Where will he be when one of the students he’s advising has further problems? Will he do a follow up? I think I know the answer to that one somehow!

He says he’ll be visiting up to 40 schools nationwide. I’m astounded that there are 40 principal teachers around the country who can be taken in by this palaver. Do these principals really believe the line being peddled by Breffny? €5 is a lot to ask for where there is no verifiable or quantifiable educational outcome.
There is however a serious point in the Breffny roadshow. This type of hawking undermines people like me who highlight how families are hard hit by cutbacks in educational spending. Next time a cut is introduced, a FF TD will point out that money can be found for luxuries like these telebs then it can be found for school buses or books.
Recently retired World Boxing Champion Bernard Dunne last week announced his retirement form boxing. Bernard climber to the top in a very tough sport. He didn't go to a private school. He features in a TV ad encouraging people to learn Irish and is learning the language himself. Bernard specifically said that he'd be prepared to visit schools too. No mention of charging and other than his expenses, I'd imagine like Sean Óg Ó hAlpin who opened my childen's school 3 yearsa ago and charged nothing, he'll spend all day in a school. REal heros from sport, now which would you prefer to listen to?

PreFFabs sprout in the south east!

This week’s Wexford People carries an indictment of any Government TD who met any school board of management and reassured them that their school construction plan would be prioritised. €900K is spent each year in Co Wexford alone on renting prefabs by FF & the Greens. In my time I’ve spoken at meetings and indeed had to listen to the steady line of spin from FF TD’s with their spin carefully honed by the Department. In the past I’ve heard how construction was halted by everything from Foot and Mouth to 9/11. Needless to say the excuse has changed but the effect on school communities is still the same, more delays.

7 years ago, I served on the BOM of my children’s school. Then we were cynically set up during an election campaign by Fianna Fail and then discarded after the election. This leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. I well understand how any parent or teacher feels about prefabs. Lets look at the Wexford Town figures; 3 schools, CBS secondary, Kennedy Park & Scoil Mhuire all have prefabs that set the taxpayer back over €100K per annum. In the surrounding parishes Barntown, Piercestown, Screen, Castlebridge and Crossabeg the prefabs there cost even more; over €110K! about 2 years ago an FOI request from me to the department revealed that rather than planning to get rid of prefabs FF and the Greens were planning to hold on to them as they compiled a database of prefabs in Ireland’s schools
One local principal says she wants a building not a prefab and is livid at the revelation that so much is being spent on prefabs. Its my view that the figures revealed are only the tip of the ice berg as it doesn’t include the cost of heating such energy inefficient buildings, cost of planning permission applications, construction of these glorified hen houses nor the cost of prefabs that were purchased by schools. It only applies to rental! The pictures on this page are all taken around the county at different primary schools, some are on the list published by the department, some are not.
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As Co Wexford TLC chairperson I worked with the INTO in the county on this issue. TLC was set up to campaign on the issue of school building. I found INTO on the ground in Wexford very effective at raising issue concerning the basic working conditions of teachers. This experience coloured my view of teaching colleagues and I strongly feel we’ve more that unites us than divides us.An in depth survey of all 100 schools in the county was taken and the results were shocking. Many of the schools on that list made no progress towards construction whatsoever. Kennedy Park, New Ross CBS and my own, where at second level we were promised a gym and associated classrooms along with the Asperger’s unit. The unit arrived courtesy of a fine prefab and no prizes for guessing that nothing else happened! If another survey was conducted now I believe that the result would be broadly the same. What’s more any incoming government will have their work cut out trying to tackle the backlog in school buildings even if the forecast is that we need 100,000 extra school spaces by 2020. .
I wonder about the capacity of the building industry to build that many schools but never doubt the capacity of FF or Green public reps to talk up their inertia and to pull the wool over the eyes of school communities