Education – Page 3 – Slugger O'Toole

EDUCATING ULSTER : Northern Ireland has a chronic shortage of students, whilst Belfast has too many and the west of the province has too few. The solution is obvious.

Steve Bradley on October 13, 2016, 7:08 am

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September marked the annual return of students to their term-time accommodation. And within two days residents of the Holylands had lodged over 150 complaints of anti-social behaviour with Belfast City Council. That university neighbourhood’s term-time population comprises over 90% of students/young people, amounting to an estimated 7,000 in just one square kilometre. It will probably provide little comfort to residents of the Holylands to learn that Northern Ireland (NI) has the lowest provision of university places in the UK. And …

Will Theresa May’s support for grammar schools help or hinder schools sharing in Northern Ireland?

Brian Walker on September 9, 2016, 12:09 pm

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Now we know why Theresa May has been so vague about Brexit. All along she has been preoccupied with – grammar schools and lifting restrictions of faith schools especially Catholic schools! Schools will be allowed to select children on the basis of ability at 14 and 16 as well as 11, Theresa May said today, as she outlined the biggest reform of the education system in 50 years. The prime minister presented her plans to allow new and expanded grammar …

“rather than trying to pretend that essentially, testing does not exist”

Pete Baker on September 7, 2016, 4:00 pm

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As the BBC notes, the Northern Ireland Education Minister, the DUP’s Peter Weir, has reversed the department’s previous position prohibiting the use of academic selection to decide what post-primary school pupils transfer to. That position was set out in 2008 by then NI Education Minister, Sinn Féin’s Caitríona Ruane, and upheld by the subsequent Minister, Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd. From the BBC report A circular sent to school principals on Wednesday removes any prohibition on using academic selection to decide what post-primary school pupils …

Message for the divided politicians. Read the long list. This is what really matters over Brexit.

Brian Walker on September 3, 2016, 6:53 pm

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Divisions in the Executive and the Assembly contributed to the lack of scenario planning for the referendum outcome and are inhibiting the development of a clear Brexit strategy. These are among the conclusions in a comprehensive briefing paper prepared for the Centre for Peace Building and Democracy ( chair Lord Alderdice) by Queen’s academics Professor David Phinnemore and Dr. Lee McGowan, entitled Establishing the Best Outcome for Northern Ireland. ‘Notoriously, similar strictures apply to Whitehall and Westminster, But party divisions …

“New leader Colum Eastwood has taken pains to say he wants Northern Ireland to work….”

Mick Fealty on April 29, 2016, 6:25 pm

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Newton Emerson, with a great comment on an issue raised rather pointed by President Obama [a man now liberated from the burdens of power, and uncommonly free with his views on many thing] which appears to have eluded several other commenters. [Though not our Pete! – Ed] : Integrated education was the example he praised of progress towards a Northern Ireland identity, though many nationalists see that as precisely integration’s problem. Some of this fear is misplaced ignorance. A common …

Is Education the Number One Priority for Unionism this Election?

st etienne on April 18, 2016, 12:31 pm

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Education, Education, Education. There have been 3 Assembly Executives elected since 1998. At each juncture, a unionist First Minister was elected and subsequently under d’Hondt a unionist was given first choice of available ministries. Each time control of the Education ministry fell to a Sinn Fein MLA – whether they were the 4th, or the 2nd, largest party. If SF should emerge the largest in the executive post May elections, they may well opt once again for the Education post. …

Abandonment of policy and a growing ‘cult of managerialism’ in education…

Mick Fealty on April 12, 2016, 5:17 pm

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Interesting piece by Frank Furedi in the Times Educational Supplement this week. It’s a well-aimed dig at managerialisation within education. It highlights a broader degradation of policy-making in England, courtesy of several generations of activist politicians. Yet some knock-on effects are evident elsewhere too (not least in devolved regions where there’s a dearth of policy innovation so that London-originated fads can get consumed and replicated without a huge amount of added thought. The cult of the leader in school prevalent …

Why are NI schools sitting on £50 million of unspent money?

Brian O'Neill on March 2, 2016, 2:17 pm

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Great story from Simon Doyle over at the Irish News. To quote: It shows that of the north’s 814 primary schools, 617 ended 2014/15 with a budget surplus. Christ the Redeemer in Lagmore, which received an annual budget of £1.8 million, ended the year more than £375,000 in the black. St Patrick’s PS in Armagh, which had a budget of £1.2m, ended with a surplus of about £342,000. Grange Park PS in Bangor’s surplus was £310,000 while Holy Trinity PS …

Who could be afraid of equality?

Turgon on February 22, 2016, 9:17 pm

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The News Letter has an article highlighting a further use / abuse of a Petition of Concern to block equality legislation with somewhat less outrage from the usual quarters. Sandra Overend of the UUP’s attempted to repeal Article 71 of the 1998 Fair Employment and Treatment Order. This is the article which exempts schools from Fair Employment legislation. Ms. Overend’s attempt was defeated by a Petition of Concern by Sinn Fein and the SDLP. On the UUP’s website Ms. Overend …

Soapbox: The Newly Qualified Teachers Scheme is blind to fate of experienced part time teachers…

Soapbox on February 3, 2016, 10:41 am

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John O'Dowd on East Belfast Speaks Out panel

LEGAL OBSTACLES: Catriona Concannon is the chairperson of the “Equal Rights for all” teacher’s group. Here she responds to Hugh Brown’s soapbox lauding the Minister of Education for his Newly Qualified Teachers Scheme aimed at creating new teaching jobs for Northern Ireland’s newly qualified teachers.

Soapbox: Why O’Dowd’s ‘Newly Qualified Teachers Scheme’ is justified…

Soapbox on January 25, 2016, 10:31 am

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John O'Dowd on East Belfast Speaks Out panel

Hugh Brown is Derry based reader, who argues there is huge benefit in John O’Dowd’s plan to take 500 teachers out of the system to make room for 500 new ones. “You’ll always get a job if you’re a teacher!” Was a watchword many years ago. Not now. Back then it ensured a pension. It ensured job security; but society has changed rapidly and it continues apace. For over 20 years students have come through the North’s first class education …

‘This community deserves better…Our young people deserve better.’

Chris Donnelly on November 26, 2015, 10:47 pm

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COMMUNITY CONTROL: The brutal attack on a voluntary community worker in Bangor can be viewed as a blatant attempt by loyalist paramilitaries to assert their power and authority over a working-class community which reacted adversely to paramilitary attempts to lay claim to the area over the past nine months.

Nine years into a devolved Education ministry educational inequality persists…

Mick Fealty on October 6, 2015, 4:46 pm

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Aha, that pesky Equality Commission is planning to dish out some more inconvenient truths about the shortcomings of Northern Ireland’s educational system. Stop me if you’ve read this before (because after seven years the news hasn’t significantly changed). From the welter of information of provided, here’s the topline findings: Males have persistently lower levels of attainment than females throughout primary and post-primary education; Protestants have persistently lower levels of attainment than Catholics at GCSE and A-Level, and that gap has …

The peace process phase is over. A new age of political progress is what we need

Brian Walker on August 27, 2015, 4:04 pm

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I hesitate just a little to criticise Peter Osborne ‘s piece on Galvanising the Peace as I bow respectfully to the view that dialogue and contacts are essential for peace, reconciliation and development. But we really have to move on from this sort of generalised approach to more rigorous analysis and hard questions leading to more real solutions. We should have learned by now that yet another appeal like Galvanising the Peace won’t crack it. It lets the political class …

niedcamp: Teachers Taking the Initiative

Blagger on July 16, 2015, 11:05 pm

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It is now widely accepted that reform of public services must continue over the coming years as both central and local government try to offer the same level of service with less money to spend. As a result we can expect further decentralisation, eradication or contracting out of some back-office functions and ever-closer relationships with partners in the private and voluntary sector. The education sector here in Northern Ireland has not been spared. The Education Authority, established to provide a …

Sex Ed: Just Ask Oprah

Soapbox on February 27, 2015, 3:55 pm

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Sex Education is a topic that is hotly debated in Northern Ireland. Writing about her experiences the former Alliance party candidate, Kate Nicholl argues for a different approach to the issue. I went to a conservative, religious, rural Zimbabwean primary school, where extra-curricular classes for girls included Young Ladies Club – a place where you learnt to embroider, match your clothes and talk about what sort of wife you hoped to be. So it was perhaps surprising that on one …

“By standing firm against the London-Dublin Tory axis, Sinn Féin achieved a welfare system better than the one in Britain…”

Pete Baker on February 15, 2015, 6:46 pm

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According to Sinn Féin national chairperson Declan Kearney, [Don’t mention the Dark Side! – Ed] …Sinn Féin from 2011 onwards opposed the proposed welfare cuts and insisted welfare protection was absolutely fundamental for all citizens. “That is why Sinn Féin politically campaigned against welfare cuts alongside trade unions and grassroots communities. “This principle guided our strategy during the Stormont House negotiations and why, in December last, when the other four Executive parties agreed to a deal on welfare, Sinn Féin …

Signs of real politics emerging from Stormont House Agreement

Brian Walker on February 11, 2015, 12:13 pm

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Be grateful for small mercies. With less than a hundred days to go before the election, implementing the Stormont Hose Agreement has had the effect of postponing the worst kind of dog-eat -dog sectarian campaigning – so far. Sinn Fein like the rest of them have had to swallow the basics of the Welfare Bill in the interests of political reality. Syriza type resistance has collapsed. To ask a different question: are there any signs at all of left-right politics …

Has Martin McGuinness blocked John O’Dowd’s proposed abolition of the Catholic certificate?

Mick Fealty on February 10, 2015, 9:53 am

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This is the story of two Ministers, John O’Dowd and Martin McGuinness. They’re not brothers, but political comrades in the same party. In this episode of Stormont Soap the Sinn Fein Education Minister protests that he wants to remove Catholic Certificate in Religious Studies. The Catholic Certificate in Religious Education also just happens to represent a key argument in the continued independence of St Mary’s College, where almost all new teachers for the Catholic maintained schools system are trained. At the same time, the Sinn Fein …

A deferred educational revolution prefered to evolution…

Mick Fealty on January 30, 2015, 11:59 am

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Ah, the forces of conservatism are everywhere! It has been revealed by the biggest show in the country that no fewer than eleven primary schools have received warnings for tutoring their pupils for the proliferant 11+ exams… Maggie Taggart in yesterday’s Newsline interviewed the head of one Primary school head who explained that the schools are simply responding to parent pressure and claims that if they don’t provide these sessions in some case parents will take their kids out and …