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IF YOU’RE TRYING to understand what has Ireland into the state it’s in today, the recent revelations about maths standards in our schools are a good place to start.
It’s not simply that we’re bad at maths, or that many of our maths teachers are underqualified, as has been revealed. It’s that our students are struggling in maths despite the fact that one of the only sectors in Ireland which has a plethora of high skilled job opportunities is the tech sector. Many of these jobs require a solid foundation in maths.
Ireland’s tech companies – whether big multinationals or smaller indigenous ones – are struggling to recruit. We’re not producing graduates with the skills the market wants.
Just how bad is the current situation? The OECD’s report on educational outcomes, published late last year, found that a quarter of our 15-year-olds are not sufficiently literate to participate effectively in society. Ireland has had the steepest decline in literacy standards amongst the 39 countries in the OECD. In maths, we had the second steepest decline, and are now ranked below average in the OECD. Incredibly, the problem is not that we are not improving fast enough, it’s that we’re actually going backwards.
At the same time, our universities have experienced sharp falls in world rankings: over the last two years, Trinity has fallen out of the top 50 universities and UCD has fallen out of the top 100. NUI Galway has just fallen 66 places to 298.
Teachers’ pay, if it delivers some of the best educated students on earth, is money well spent
If our economy and national finances weren’t in such turmoil, the collapse of our educational rankings would be a national emergency. With everything else we’re coping with, it is just another serious problem to address. But let us be very clear – the medium-to-long-term survival of Ireland as a prosperous nation depends on our having one of the best education systems on earth.
In this context, the current debate on education, focused largely on teacher’s pay, is grievously misdirected. It is true that our teachers are paid well relative to many other countries. But theirs is probably the most important of professions. We entrust them, literally and metaphorically, with the future of our country. If they can deliver some of the best educated and prepared students on earth, then it is money well spent.
The question we must start asking is this: ‘How do we create one of the top-ten education systems internationally in the next five years? How do we get into the top three within ten years?’
The problem is that the mechanism for reform, the Croke Park Agreement, anchors any reform to the current system. Let’s take teaching hours as an example. The question which needs to be asked is ‘How many teaching hours per week do the best education systems in the world have?’ The question which was asked instead was ‘Can we increase current teaching hours by one hour per week?’
We are benchmarking ourselves against the wrong country.
We need to benchmark ourselves against the best. South Korea, Finland, Canada, New Zealand – these have the best education systems in the world.
In 1989, New Zealand had an underperforming education system, and one of the most centralised in the world. A new government shut down the Department of Education overnight, set up a new Ministry for Education, and devolved power to individual schools and their boards, made up of parents and community leaders. Today, they have the fourth best education system in the world.
In the early 1990s, Finland emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union, its principal trading partner, into recession, with unemployment exploding from three per cent to 18 per cent. The Government responded by increasing education spending, investing in teachers and principals, and promoting creativity and innovation in schools. Today, they are ranked as the second best system in the world.
New Zealand and Finland took radical approaches – but produced radical improvements
New Zealand and Finland took radically different approaches to reforming their education systems – New Zealand’s is market-based, with funding following students to the schools; Finland’s is more cooperative. Both made mistakes along the way, but both approaches were radical and both produced radical improvements.
The people who know what radical changes need to be made are our teachers and principals. And yet the changes are being decided in and around Kildare Street by a mixture of union officials, quango appointees, politicians and civil servants.
I’ve been talking to teachers and principals, and this is what I am hearing. Teachers want more sophisticated training at college, and more effective in-service training. They want more freedom in the classroom – to innovate, to experiment, to inspire their students. They want a curriculum that is designed for today’s children and tomorrow’s adults, not one bound by tradition and a points race.
Principals want better resources and support. They want to be allowed to run their schools as they deem best. They want control over their own budgets. One principal explained to me that they couldn’t paint the walls, as purchasing paint with the annual budget was not allowed. They also want management control. This includes the power to hire the best teachers they can find and, ultimately, to fire teachers (constrained by employment rights and with strict oversight). With this authority must, of course, come real accountability – to the school boards, to the parents and to the Department.
We do not know, other than by anecdote, who is doing well and who is struggling
Accountability requires, amongst other things, measurement of performance. Astonishingly, there is no standardised collection of performance data for our schools. We do not know, other than by anecdote, who is doing well and who is struggling. This makes is very difficult to identify and learn from the best and to direct financial support and expertise to where it is needed most. It makes it impossible to hold people to account.
There is magnificent work being done in our schools. But it is being done in spite of, not because of, the system. We need to reverse that, so that the system encourages excellence, and so that all schools can rise to that standard.
This is a time of enormous challenge. But there is also great opportunity. We can, and must, emerge from these crises – social, financial and educational – with an education system which is the envy of the world.
We may struggle to beat New Zealand on the rugby pitch (though after Saturday’s magnificent victory against Australia in the Rugby World Cup, anything is possible). But when it comes to education, at least, we should be able to play them off the field.
Stephen Donnelly is independent TD for Wicklow and East Carlow.
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The reforms need to happen at national school level. Smaller class sizes, better trained teachers, European language taught, no compulsory Irish.
Why is it impossible to teach Irish and European languages?
I don’t believe he stated that Fiachra – he simply said no “compulsory” Irish.
One of the best articles I’ve read in a long time, we’ve fooled ourselves for years that we’re still the “Land of Saints and Scholar’s” and Ireland has one of the best education systems in the world but now we know, we have sweet damn all saints and not much of an education system.
We can waste time, money and effort running around looking for who to blame, take ten years for a tribunal and make more barristers even richer, or we can use that time to fix it, do what countries like Finland and New Zealand did. Its interesting to note that the teachers spoken to wanted better, up to date training, they want to be allowed to teach and not constrained.
Bravo! Excellent article
Irish needs to be made optional for the leaving cert because it brings down too many peoples results and there is a need for more emphasis to be put on maths and trying to get people to do the higher level paper, not just giving extra points but giving extra classes instead of irish.
The fact that it brings down results, is a fault of the Irish syllabus, not the language.
A couple of simple measures could help get a better quality and more diverse teaching profession -
At the moment to become a national school teacher you need to get a C3 in Higher Level Irish, a C3 in Ordinary Level English and a D3 in Ordinary Level Maths.
Only about 20% of a students that do Irish achieve a C3 at Higher Level in it. If we scrapped this and put less emphasis on Irish and more emphasis on English and Maths it would have the following effect.
- It would open teaching up to far more LC students and others, thus making the courses more popular, resulting in a better pool of potential teachers. (Lots of students currently meet the point requirements but fall down because of the Irish results)
- It would result in more male teachers at primary level which are currently underrepresented. (girls do a lot better than boys at LC Irish)
- It would allow more foreign teachers (including UK teachers) into the profession which would create a more diverse teaching profession and would also provide more role models for our new generation of ethnically diverse students.
- More students from disadvantaged backgrounds could become teachers as many of them currently meet the points requirements but not the Irish requirement.
- More emphasis on English and Maths at primary level will feed through to a higher standard at secondary level.
For those that are worried that we’ll have loads of teachers that can’t speak Irish, there’s a simple solution to this. Irish becomes an exit requirement instead of an entry requirement for the course. In other words, students can learn Irish as part of the course and will have to have achieved a certain standard to qualify
In addition to the above, there should be interviews, aptitude and personality tests for all candidates for teaching (primary and secondary) to ensure the right type of people are being selected for places on courses.
Excellent points – every one of them ! Definitely your last paragraph is worth repeating. Effective people, no matter their
career, usually have a good if not great, APPROACH. You typically dont send a quiet introverted character out on the road to sell
- you usually pick the charming, extrovert. Why then do we have sullen, bad tempered and gruff teachers (my 13 yr olds maths teacher). I finished a Masters over 4 years and only one of my lecturers was inspiring. This teaching problem is at all levels and not easily solved. A bad teacher, especially a bad maths teacher, can ruin your experience of Maths for life. I have a Maths teacher friend who one day basically told me that some of her 1st years were hopeless and shouldnt be doing Maths !!!! I said surely the job of a teacher is to inspire enthusiasm and interest in their students for a subject and also relish the challenge of making a reluctant, say maths student – an energised one. Wheres the challenge in teaching a bright analytical maths genius who’ll make it without you anyway.
Any subject can be made interesting if you have the right person teaching it ..I believe that the reason that most people hate particular subjects is because it is not made interesting enough. ??
The trouble with education reform, as most reform in Ireland, is the complete stonewalling of the idea of major and systemic reform in all but placid talking points.
How many reports have there been into education pointing to the same flaws and suggesting menus of options that have been quietly shelved through the years?
Major reform requires vision and tenacity from those who hold power. Thus far, no luck.
@ Aaron, you’re right there. Problem is, there are too many twats in unions preventing any positive change from occurring… As Stephen said, teachers know what they need, the requirements for improvement, but are restrained by the powers that be. Hopefully change is on the horizon
Teachers should work in the real world. That would help
"Work in the real world?" If it is so easy working in the "imaginary world" why didn’t you choose to work there?… You must not be too clever if that’s the case. And yes I am a teacher. And I did work in the private sector after I finished my degree but I took a pay cut to go into teaching and do something I feel is a lot more fulfilling and rewarding and that will make a positive contribution to our society.. Instead of moaning, whinging and begrudging. I totally agree with the sentiments of this article… We just don’t do reform very well as a nation..
Ahem we beat Australia maybe Geography needs an upgrade as well ??
Hi there,
I have to intervene here and say that I made a strange mistake when inputting Stephen’s article to the system this evening so the geographical mistake was purely mine! Apologies to Stephen – and sorry for confusing everyone! The correct final sentence is in place.
Thanks everyone,
Susan,
Editor
Scrap the budget for Irish and give it to SNA’s. Much more valuable.
Could not agree more that some performance measure is essential, especially at primary level. We just do not know what is going on there at the moment. Standardised testing of students, while a blunt instrument is surely the fairest way to achieve this. Bring back the primary exams!
Standardised testing in primary schools takes place at every level from First to Sixth Classes for a number of years. It’s a requirement. Drumcondra Reading and Maths Tests, MICRA-T, SIGMA-T etc are some examples
Is it any wonder when the majority of teenagers still engage in ‘text speak’ ?
Prospective Hibernia students have to sit an interview in which their level of Irish is vetted, as well as how suited their personality is to the teaching profession. The cao doesn’t currently have the same process, which means that many students straight out of the leaving cert get the points for teaching and are just not suited to the profession. Post grad students bring their maturity and life experience to the classroom. They are an asset to the teaching profession!
Just asked my 11 year old kid (6th class) if he had the choice to give up one subject, what would it be. Irish, immediate response.
We’re just not good at reform as a nation. I think it might take a completely different framework to achieve measurable change in education when you take the power of the teachers’ unions into account. I think Ruairi Quinn might be the right man for the job but will this Govt last long enough for him to effect a change? I dunno.
I have to communicate through my work with a lot of kids in the 18-22 age bracket and their level of literacy is shocking. It’s as if it’s so uncool to be able to form a sentence. Maybe it’s cool to be stupid. What’s certain is that if we’re handing the future of this country to them in time, we’re all screwed.
Just an idea, but there’s a lot more to “Irish” than the language, why not teach our myths, legends, culture, everything from the Book of Kells to the Tuatha Dé Danann and the story of Cúchulain. How many kids could draw a simple Celtic knotwork pattern, something everyone recognises as Irish, who knows the three sorrows of Irish storytelling? If done the right way children would enjoy learning this uniquely Irish subject matter.
Kids learn Irish very well up until the age of 8, then they seem to freeze and refuse to learn it. Immigrant children seem to be immune to this, however.
The teaching of Irish appears to be a problem of attitudes. It’s perceived by adults and children alike to be useless, archaic and incredibly difficult. As someone who speaks Irish as a first language, and who went to a Gaelscoil, I’ve never been able to get my head around it. I love speaking it, as it is an incredibly musical and expressive language. English, on the other hand, while very flexible, does not give me the same aesthetic pleasure.
I think that the main problem when it comes to teaching the language, is that the teacher, the pupil and the pupil’s parent treat it as a chore rather than something that could be in fact very profitable in the long run.
Totally agree, I went to an Irish school in the sixties .Didnt like it . Yet I still communicate in Irish ( Badly ) where possible .
, we should not loose our Native language….
Don’t forget that under the Finnish model for Education you are required to have a Masters to be a teacher…
So? It’s quite normal, that secondary teachers do have a masters degree. And I do not understand the system anyway. They go to school 5 – 6 years in secondary level. There is a transition year which is a waste of time, time they could spend to learn more. There are two big tests, junior and leaving cert but after finishing this, they have nothing. No education even close to german or austrian levels (sorry to say that but true) not to speak of a profession.
There is really much to do and the earlier they start, the better
The groupthink which suggests that downgrading one national (and European) language in order to improve educational standards is a very strange one. Many foreign born children have little trouble picking it up (along with other languages), so perhaps the lack of interest/support in Irish comes from the monolingual/Anglophone parents? Do you read Irish to them, watch tg4 or expose them to cultural phenomena other than x-factor/ premiership? Blaming teachers or the language itself appears to be a deluded cop-out.
I don’t think people are blaming the teachers or the language itself. It is the system that’s to blame. The way the Irish language is taught does not take into account precisely the issues which you have outlined above, that is, the majority of children are growing up in homes where Irish isn’t spoken and where parents are unable to speak the language. As such for many children starting school, Irish is foreign to them. The problem is our education system doesn’t recognise this. This is largely due to the fact that Irish language policy has always been developed by fluent speakers, many of whom are ideological but not pragmatic. There continues to be a minority of Irish language speakers that are so delusional, that they believe Irish should be taught in the same way that English is, and as such emphasis should be put on the written language. They justify this by pointing to our Constitution and informing us that Irish is an official language of the state. This may very well be the case, but the reality is that most Irish people would struggle to have a conversation As Gaeilge. Therefore children are not getting much exposure to the Irish language at home (and even the measures you have outlined, although helpful, would not compensate for this fact). As such, the emphasis in schools should be on the spoken language, not the written language. This would make it much easier for children to learn the Irish language and it would also be more enjoyable for them. Children can easily pick up foreign languages in this way. So why doesn’t our education system focus on the spoken language? Because crazy fanatics in the Department of Education can’t bare to admit that Irish is essentially foreign to most children and therefore should be taught differently to English. The problem we face is that there are quite a lot of members of our teaching unions of this ilk. Children being able to learn a second language from an early age (whatever it is) will find it easier to learn other languages later on. Therefore changing the system is essential.
Conor – I agree – the problem is one of attitudes… children get a regular dose of “the Irish language is stupid and pointless” at home, and bring it to the classroom. Over time, teachers get worn down by this, lose their passion for teaching it and the standards plummet.
The problem, as always, begins in primary school. The secondary school curricula, while archaic, doesn’t justify why the standards are so poor.
One. My son attends St Joseph’s Secondary School in Rush. According to anecdote, this was a dump of a school. They got a new principal before he enrolled and it is now producing great results. Yes, there are heroes in our school system.
Two, teachers pay is relative to the costs in the country. Newstalk shoves a professor out to state that Irish teachers are paid more than in Germany. Duh. No context. What he didn’t do was give context. We are 30% more expensive than Germany. Every extra cent earned by teachers is gobbled up by a voracious private sector, where pay is not examined at all.
Three, the need to learn Irish is irrelevant to our standards. If anything, learning Irish facilitates the learning of other languages. Indeed the learning of any language facilitates the learning of others. When we learn a language new synaptic connections are made and information flows along those connections. We have a language of our own with a small population. So does denmark, nearly the same population, so does finland with equal global irrelevance linguistically. Yet they speak their own language and english perfectly. Why? Because ones own language matters more than the price of it. To remind you of Oscar Wilde, a cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
And to add to that Rory – how come most of the Faroese speak Faroese (45,000), as well as Danish, English and some even have German on top of all of that. Look at Iceland, a country with a population of just over 300,000 – they all speak Icelandic as well as English and Danish (the majority). Then you look at Ireland – most speak only English and could barely hold a sentence in any other language, never mind in Irish.
Finland had many businesses acting as trade gateways between East & West in the Cold War which, overnight, were not needed.
Could you clarify what you mean by "institutionalized"? Life experience means nothing if you can’t teach.
I agree, I have always thought it would be a good idea if people who are teaching children to enter the competitive world of commerce, actually had a good few years of experience in it. As you said, School, College, School.
Just to make you all feel better, I was looking at my daughter’s writing book from last year and I found five mistakes in the teacher’s comments. I live in New Zealand. I’d love to know which schools they choose in each country to do the testing for these reports.
Illustrative to see how Irish dominates this debate. In my experience the language has its greatest bearing on day to day life in garnering and protecting advantage be it in the teaching profession, for CAO points, Media and other professions
I find it depressing that the comments of those defending its enduring status imply that a child’s disinterest is the fault of the child’s family or primary education. It seems to be founded on the half baked assumption that the natural state for a child is to have a passion for Irish. Why not a passion for computing, astronomy, art, ceramics, history, economics?
We need to give kids the freedom to discover where their talents lie and encourage them to fully develop them. If their talents do not include an aptitude for and love of Irish there is no point penalizing their development by insisting that they continue to study it post JC.
I went to both primary & secondary Gaelscoils & LOVED it! I did have the advantage of my dad & his family speaking Irish at home with us & helping with homework (not my Mom though as she grew up in Belfast & it wasn’t taught in schools back then, although she has tried to learn it!). I grew up with Irish so it was normal to me & I never disliked it & couldn’t get my head round why people from other schools hated it so much! It’s a pity & even my 9 year old nephew hates Irish! I don’t agree it shouldn’t be taught in schools or be made as a choice as it’s OUR national language, but something does need to be done to make students want to learn it like they want to learn other languages.
The Irish language is beautiful but right now it is a luxury when people are loosing SNA’s and the country is on it’s knees. Today people are having ESB or Gas cut off, loosing the roof over their heads and emigrating yet the government are still eating cake.
All luxury items should be taxed not subsidised until we can afford them.
Lots of people proposing dropping Irish…as if that’s the problem. It’s not even a factor.
The problem starts when you have class sizes of 32-33+ kids in national school and and no assisstance for the teacher or when you have to mix of 4th & 5th classes due to lack of teachers (as in my son’s school). We need to rebuild from the bottom up!
Start by getting class sizes down to acceptable levels and get support for teachers. What about all the teachers or engineering & science grads on the dole? Can’t they act as teacher’s assisstants for 20hrs per week since the state is paying them anyway?
What about extra teachers for kids with special needs or learning difficulties? It’s just not happening.
We never had a good education system, we’ve been kidding ourselves for years.
I have to agree that Irish should be a choice for Leaving Cert. Five classes a week studying something that lets be honest most people will never use. In my daughters secondary school they do one 40 minute class a week in computers and five 40 minute classes in Irish. Which is the most likely to be used in the future? Why is Ireland so slow to take on change. I know Irish is our heritage, but we need to look to our future, not the past. No other language is compulsory for leaving cert and its time to change this now.
I have to agree that this does make sense, my wife thinks if they ban the language everyone will want to learn it, I doubt it. It makes far more sense to adjust the curriculum to teach what’s required in universities or by employers. I read some time ago that this is whats done in Finland, they talk to technology employers like say, Nokia, who say we need to see people trained to a certain standard in x, y an z and within 2 years or so they can adjust their curriculum to do this.
In short, they change their education system very quickly to suit what the market demands, they listen to what prospective employers need and give it to them. We don’t, we do the opposite. We listen, nod our heads, talk about it, then do nothing but wring our hands when factories close… and go to Finland.
My 11 year old son corrected his teacher last year when she was doing “extra” maths with the class. She is the principle of the school! REALLY?? All she had to say was good boy for keeping me on my toes! CRAZY!
"principle"?
I’d love to know why you are disliking my remark? Truth is the principle, yes that her title at our little school is in charge of extra maths in the classrooms. She told the class that 25% and 1/4 weren’t the same! Hate the system not my remark! Btw my son knew that right answer because he was educated in the states for the first ten years of his life. Hasn’t learn a thing new here yet but Irish! Two years in the Irish schools and learned nothing! Dislike away!
Diane you could do with picking up a few sentence structure, spelling and grammatical tips from your little angel. I also wonder if perhaps your little genius was only telling you something you’d like to hear. In other words, you complain about the school/teacher and the child says something mommy might like. The US system of primary education must be amazing, now let me look at all their high results….oh wait no
It’s Principal actually!
People need to realise that they are responsible for their own kids education, the schools should be only viewed as assisting in that process, not taking total responsibility for it.
Parents for the last 15 years were too busy throwing kids into creches and off with childminders in order to go do overtime to collect a wad of cash to pay off the huge mortgage and an oversized car loan. You reap what you sow.
But there is another social aspect to this too… the kids of the abandoned generation who are now educated to a low standard and have poor relationships with their parents will have no interest in helping out their parents in the years to come… alot of parents will find themselves abandoned in nursing homes in the coming decades. The wheel will come full circle.
DISCLAIMER: I am not tarring every parent with the above, but alot of parents took part in the practice.
Maybe Ireland cannot become one of the ‘top ten’ in education. Maybe it is an unrealistic ambition, a bit on a par with the nonsense suggested during the bubble years that Ireland would join the G20, if not the G8. These trends in maths and literacy performance are not reversible overnight, if at all, and even as Ireland tries to reverse them, other countries are also trying to improve their standards. The net result is stasis. Not sure about these university league tables, reminds me of the dubious value of ‘best dressed person’ competitions. At the moment, education is everywhere and yet nearly half a million people are out of work. There is more to an economy than league tables, literacy and maths standards.
I loved Irish, I had my Aran sweater all ready for when I got the hang of the language… but it just didn’t happen for me. I ran into Peig Sayers along the way and that was that, oh I tried, went to Gaeltacht’s and everything. You know when your parents tell you “when I was a lad we did everything through Irish”, well as it happens all through secondary school the Irish teacher I had went to school with my father, never knew my name, and taught Irish through Irish. I was doomed from the start. As I said I have a love for Irish culture, and I wanted to learn the language too, the student was willing, the teacher was willing, I believe it was in the method that myself and many others failed. I had the privilege to meet a great maths teacher many years ago, he helped me greatly, he used to say here’s how the Department say you have to teach how to do these, and show me a long drawn out process. Then he’d say here’s an easier way and literally show how to do it in your head, a genius of a man. The point I got from that was that teachers are constrained by the Department of Education who tell them HOW to teach. It didn’t work for me.
How many people out there have been taught Irish from Primary to Leaving Cert level and yet are unable or unwilling to use a word of it? Along with the dismal days of ‘Peig’ and the poetic ramblings of ‘misery lit’ the fate of the language was doomed to be remembered as a badge worn by rabid purists ranting and raving about dead nationalist hero’s and as an icon of our inward looking past. The problem needs more than teacher training.
As for maths how many teachers fully understand what they teach. Student: ‘ What’s this for? What does it do?
Teacher: ‘It gets you marks in the exam’.
Inertia in the public service. Union intractability. Jaded teachers despondent with an unwieldy system that dulls the imagination of both teacher and student. I just could go on and on…
wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in a country with a government brave enough to close a dept and re-start from the begining, there are a lot of rules etc set out by the dept, trouble is they just keep adding rules to solve problems in the short term there’s v little long sighted planning involved.
I think it’s unfair to blame the unions here, they are after all there to look out for thieir members rights, if the systme was reformed things would change.
regarding Irish, it’s getting a bashing here as a subject, it’s not something I am or was any good at, now my kids are atttending a gaelscoil I can see how easy it is for them to soak up the language and enjoy it, it’s the dept lead curriculum of HOW irish is taught rather than the language itself
What do we want? More tests! When do we want them? Now!
Define best? The best at taking standardised tests or the actual best. I find this article superficial and badly thought out.
We are going entirely in the wrong direction. We never ever teach kids to learn and we are wedded to the 19th century factory mindset. We are educating people for a world that does not exist and that we are not capable of predicting.
donnelly is suggesting that the department of education has too much control over irish education this is ridiculous they adjudicated it to the churches long ago, the situation he claims he wants already exist and this is the problem
apart from ‘education’ what else do our children learn at school – particularly at secondary level? That it is acceptable to have your life controlled by an arbitrary authority for 12-14 hours per day 5-6 days per week? For what return? A meaningless ranking in a points system? A promise that they might go on to further education thereby introducing them to the debt system while they’re still wet behind the ears? That the different rules for girls and boys are to be enforced though inequality will be denied vociferously? That authorities will enforce petty rules simply to retain their own power by subordinating the wishes of the masses?
yes, the education system needs attention, unbelievably radical attention……
stephen donnelly made a review of education system without mentioning the church????
Yes, the elephant in the room! If education is to be improved in Ireland then it needs to start at primary school when kids first encounter subjects like Irish, maths and literacy. It is at this stage that we should concentrate on getting them to understand maths, English and another language preferably one that will be of use to them in the future. Too much time is wasted in Irish schools, preparing children for catholic rituals such as communion and confirmation when it could be used for the subjects above. This should not be done in schools, if people want their kids to go through those things then let them do at weekends in their churches or church halls etc and on their own time not the schools.Too many schools are run by the catholic church and are not providing either the calibre of teacher or the standard of teaching required but then most of the teachers are trained in colleges which are also run by the same crowd! The catholic church needs to be taken out of the education system before anything will change. Then look at NZ and Finland and learn from them, we can use the best of their experiences and tailor it to suit Irish needs. Sadly, most children do not want to learn Irish and the way it is enforced on them only defeats the purpose. It needs serious changes in the way it is thought.
have your say