Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

It would be foolish to completely rubbish the newly-announced plans to introduce road safety classes to Transition Year students as any move in that direction is a positive one; but the whole thing does leave you asking ‘is this it?’

Simon had given the most recent account of the phenomenon: the government toying with days of the week and seasons when scheduling elections and referenda for political advantage.  Now Bertie has a new twist: a Lisbon vote in June, on a day yet to be scheduled, but in the middle of when many first-time voters [...]

Speaking on the Week in politics about ABA Brian Hayes said that Parents want choice. Now this was in relation to autism education but are Fine Gael willing to run with this further. The thing about school choice is that I am torn by it. On the one hand I am very much in favour [...]

There is a constant ratcheting up of pressure on this issue for Hanafin. This afternoon John Gormley and some Green paty representatives met parents of autistic children and promised to raise the issue of provision for ABA with Minister Hanafin (link once I get one-heard on radio). Niall’s ABA post is still very active over [...]

One wonders if the Cabinet have decided to collect their deferred pay raises as travel benefits. Just in the last few days: Mary Hanafin postpones a trip to the USA by a day to appear at a Dail debate on autism; Dermot Ahern still says he’s travelling across the world to East Timor even with [...]

The only surprise with the public sector pay benchmarking report is that the unions sound surprised. The findings have had an air of inevitability going back to the time that the implications of the previous benchmarking round sunk in: a nearly 10% jump in public sector pay, on top of what was agreed in [...]

We had this up yesterday about the Fine Gael proposals on Schools and the piece about cheap laptop provision to all students. Hanafin has laughed off the possibility of supplying laptops to all 344,000 secondary pupils for a total of €23m – or just under €67 each. The main reason is the requirement for software suites [...]

Forensic Science is one of if not the most popular science subject in UK universities. Thousands apply to do it. In my Uni it is not unusual to see a group of students out on the grass dressed up in the full gear marking of a section of grass. So what are the job prospects [...]

Fine Gael have announced their policies on Science. I haven’t much time to comment on them but here is a few quick points.

Those with an interest in third-level education will no doubt recall the interest sparked by one Frank Prendergast Jr, whose High Court challenge to the quota system for medicine courses has been the cause of much discussion in educational circles.

On the day when it also emerged that the proposed ban on incandescent light bulbs might contravene EU regulations, the government has used a classic late Friday news dump to ensure the row over water charges for schools will continue to rumble. The issue is the clarification issued for Bertie Ahern’s pre-Christmas declaration that [...]

Every 3 years the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development does a standardised test to measure the educational attainment of secondary school students across many countries in the world.  The point of the test is to be able to compare how educational systems are doing across countries despite differences in structure.  It’s very mixed news [...]

So the idiotic debate on College entry from Private “grind School” roles on again.
MONEY still talks when it comes to going to university, the 2007 college entry figures confirm.Grind and fee-paying schools continue to dominate the tables of feeder schools for a number of leading third-level institutions.
 

Today I read with increasing incredulity, the attempt being made by Prof. William Reville, Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at one of our state-funded universities, UCC, to say that science and religion were not so different after all.
This is one of many attempts on this island to soften up the teaching of Science [...]

Mary Hanafin has announced that new fee-paying schools will get no assistance from the government. The Indo seems to have an exclusive with this one; the Minister was reportedly answering a query from Ruairi Quinn, as if to remind Labour that Fianna Fail can be as lefty as anyone, thank you very much indeed. Existing [...]

So the “fallout” from the Math’s results continues. With both Fine Gael and Labour coming out with statements blaming the government and that they will bring joined up thinking to the problem etc etc. Problem both Labour and Fine Gael miss one of the biggest problems with Math and indeed Labour miss it in the [...]