Free Education in Ireland a Joke

I teach in a secondary school and our school does not treat children differently if they have paid the levy or not. Most teachers will not know or be interested in who has paid. Money is an issue for the management of the school.

However, in order to offer sports and other activities funds are always needed - so the money goes back to the students to offer them a better and more rounded experience of school.

Our levy is €60 for one or €80 for a family and about half of the pupils pay.

Children rarely take in a packed lunch they also seem to be flush with money... I used to buy second hand books in a local V de Paul shop and they were very cheap so parents should try this out as an option. Book schemes are good but they tend to hold onto books a bit too long even when a much better replacement is available.

I agree with poster above - if we want Scandanavian style luxury we must be willing to pay higher taxes...

In our school we have a fund for students who can't afford to pay for the basics. This is not advertised so if you are a parent who is struggling ring the school and in confidence they may be able to offer some extra supports.
 
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So true and I totally agree. Note that none of the raving complainers will acknowledge this fact however...
 
monkeyboy said:
So true and I totally agree. Note that none of the raving complainers will acknowledge this fact however...
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The other thing that they will not acknowledge is that a teacher at the top of the scale is getting around €100 an hour for each hour of classroom time.
No wonder there's no money left for books...
 
However, in order to offer sports and other activities funds are always needed
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I thought PE was a core part of the curriculum being paid for by the taxpayer?

One thing not mentioned on this thread is that the school system in Ireland is mostly a private sector monopoly over an essential public service with some cartel sympthoms. I wonder if the monopoly/cartel did not exist, would schools be changing textbook editions so frequently? An publically delivered education system would probably not change textbooks as often either.

Question you should ask the teachers/boards of management: what are you getting in return from the publishers for changing text books?
 
csirl said:
Question you should ask the teachers/boards of management: what are you getting in return from the publishers for changing text books?
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I can't prove it to be true or false but I believe, based on my own interaction with my childrens' school, that if the school are getting kickbacks from publishers, or suppliers of school uniforms, that the money is being ploughed straight back into the school.
 

What needs to be considered is that for the parent, is the collective cost of replacing the books every other year higher than the kickbacks they get? Would parents prefer to pay e.g. €50 extra in contribution rather than €200 extra on new books?
 
Ok, so one week back in school and another book has to be replaced today. The class were told to buy a particular book and today the teacher announces that she doesn't like that book and hopes they didn't throw last years book away. She is the teacher they had last year for that subject so she must have ordered it but today she says "I don't know how that got on the list". I am exasperated........3 changes already to the book list.
 
At the risk of bringing the discussion totally off-topic, why on earth is The Merchant of Venice still on the curriculum? If any of today's serious writers wrote anything as anti-semitic as the MoV, they would be castigated by civilised society, and rightly so.
 

You cannot judge something written in a different era through the comtemporary glasses of todays society. I agree that is has an anti semitic flavour but at the time it was written it was considered acceptable - by the society of the time.
 

But is it not as educational to look at the MoV to point out the stupidity of such racist and anti-semitic work while at the same time appreciating the quality of the writing and the moral questions it poses?

You can't educate someone on the prevelance of racism without exposing them to examples of it.
 
truthseeker said:
You cannot judge something written in a different era through the comtemporary glasses of todays society. I agree that is has an anti semitic flavour but at the time it was written it was considered acceptable - by the society of the time.
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At the risk of being facetious, paedophilia was accepted (some might say glorified) in classical Greek culture. Does that mean...


The MoV ends with the villain, who just happens to be a Jew (sounds familiar?) being offered the choice of being executed or being converted to Christianity. I rest my case.
 
ubiquitous said:
The MoV ends with the villain, who just happens to be a Jew (sounds familiar?) being offered the choice of being executed or being converted to Christianity. I rest my case.
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...so what happened (or do I have to rent the movie?
 
ubiquitous said:
At the risk of being facetious, paedophilia was accepted (some might say glorified) in classical Greek culture. Does that mean...
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It means that modern day moral values should not be used to prejudge events in the past


ubiquitous said:
The MoV ends with the villain, who just happens to be a Jew (sounds familiar?) being offered the choice of being executed or being converted to Christianity. I rest my case.
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To be honest I'm not sure how your point addresses my point but maybe I'm just thick (or a Gentile)
 
Okay I'll try again...

efm said:
But is it not as educational to look at the MoV to point out the stupidity of such racist and anti-semitic work while at the same time appreciating the quality of the writing and the moral questions it poses?
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Unlike say, Huckleberry Finn, the MoV does not present racism (or more particularly anti-semitism) as something stupid. The very essence of the portrayal of Shylock is that he is an evil man because he is a usurer and a Jew. Hence at the end of the play he is forced to renounce both his usury and his religion in order to avert his own execution. This is presented as a victory for the good guys.

The argument about the "quality of the writing and the moral questions it poses" reminds me of the joke about the guy who tells his girlfriend that he buys Playboy "for the articles". There are surely at least 1 or 2 other comparable Shakespearean plays that are not contaminated by racism or anti-semitism in the way that the MoV is?

efm said:
You can't educate someone on the prevelance of racism without exposing them to examples of it.
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I am all for free speech and generally I'm not a fan of censorship. However I don't think that racist or sectarian hate material has any place on a mainstream secondary school curriculum.
 
Caveat said:
Can you say why you think it is "much, much" better?
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Sorry for the delay, it was question I had to put my mind (and a bit of time) to before answering.

My opinion of irish schools, at least the ones I've been involved in, is that while the buildings are not up to any acceptable standard, the education is far superior to anything I have encountered elsewhere. I was surprised when my then six year old daughter came home from her new school with the same "Janet and John" book that I learnt to read from nearly forty years ago..I'm sure it was the exact same copy The discipline is stricter, expectations higher and while the teaching methods can be a little "antiquated" I find they work. Most of the teachers I have been involved with here have a wonderful balance of "firm but nurturing".
At senior level I like the two cycles, Junior and Leaving Cert. In England and Scotland there are exams at the end of 4th, 5th and 6th years leaving students with a bewildering array of "O"s and "A" and whatever else has been introduced since I left.


Yes, it's "Highers" in Scotland but I understand the system has changed a little since I was in school. My children were educated in Scotland for about 18 months and I found the standard much higher than in England but not as high as in Ireland. Schools here seems to be more academically driven while in the UK there is a slightly more relaxed attitude. Hard to describe, sorry.

When I made an appointment with a principal here to enrol my eldest in his senior school he rather snootily informed me "Well at least she's coming from Scotland..it's a slightly better education that she'd have if she was coming from England" (I didn't put her to that school).

Sounds encouraging that you think the standard of education provided here is worth the costs involved.
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We left England and the private sector to move to Scotland and an area where there was no private school. Both children went to state schools and despite my reservations (and a brief flirtation with the idea of homeschooling as we weren't going to be there for long) I quickly re-discovered that Scotland (where I was educated) could provide for "free" what the english private sector couldn't. The child who struggled to keep up with maths in a school more interested in how straight her socks were soon raced through the "sets", jumping four levels in the year and a bit she was there. In Ireland a fantastic teacher helped her further and she's just started in fifth year having got an "A" at Junior Cert. She's studying Higher level Maths and Physics. For the record, we had a long, long battle with the english school to get her the help she needed but since she didn't qualify as "remedial" they insisted she was just not too great at maths.

So, to surmise, perhaps because I was used to paying fees previously I didn't mind so much having to pay for books when I got here. I was just surprised. I wouldn't even consider sending my children to a private school here as there is simply no need.

Maybe I got lucky with the schools my children are in, even when we moved house I left them there as they were settled. My one and only financial gripe is that when my eldest daughter goes out to represent her school, we have to pay for the bus. I accept this for school trips but it gets quite expensive during the seasons where she's active with hockey, choir, debating,football..........the list goes on.
 
I agree, if it was me I'd refuse to buy any book until the school year had started and the school was sure of what books were needed.
 
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