Children paying price for economic confidence trick

It is the vulnerable who suffer from our belief in salvation through savage austerity

IN THE original 1904 stage version of Peter Pan, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, the author planned a charming moment when Peter Pan would appeal to the audience on behalf of the poisoned fairy, Tinkerbell.

“She thinks she could get well again if only you would believe! Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe! If you believe, clap your hands!” The director was so unsure that the audience would respond that he instructed the orchestra to clap.

But the audience clapped so enthusiastically that the actor playing Peter Pan was overcome. If I were in the audience, I would have clapped really hard, too. Saluting imagination and innocence is a good thing. But maybe it should give us pause that the subtitle of the play describes a boy who refuses to grow up.

Last week, Leo Varadkar decided not to clap, and Tinkerbell had to be given the emergency kiss of life by Enda Kenny. Just an immature boy? Well, sadly, many economists agree with Leo’s view. And there is the small detail that we called Fianna Fáil liars and worse for pretending that the IMF were not coming to town when they were on the verge of strolling into Government Buildings.

Peter Pan is a wonderful fantasy. But in the nightmare that we are stuck in, it is truly scary that our economy apparently depends on nods and whispers, that loose lips can sink the whole ship. The economic world we live in seems to be a form of collective insanity, where everything depends on perception rather than reality.

Economist Paul Krugman often talks about what he calls the “confidence fairy” myth. It is a real-world version of clapping for Tinkerbell. He says that it is being embraced with particular earnestness by Ireland.

The short version of the theory runs like this. Savage austerity will improve confidence and spur growth. Krugman says that not only is there no evidence for this belief, but the opposite is likely to happen. In a theatre, or cinema, there is no downside to clapping for Tinkerbell. In the real world, clapping for the confidence fairy has drastic consequences.

In recent times, the Department of Education has issued a number of circulars. The last one concerned cuts in resource hours for pupils with special educational needs. Schools will be allocated 90 per cent of what they were given last year. So a school with 25 hours in the last academic year will receive 22.5 hours. There is no attempt to justify this on the grounds that needs are less.

Instead, the economic control framework is invoked six times in a short document, most notably in the first paragraph. “An employment control framework has been agreed for the Department of Education and Skills for the period 2011 to 2014 as part of a control of public sector numbers and the public sector pay bill. Successful achievement of these numbers controls forms a vital component of compliance with the EU-IMF agreement of financial support for Ireland. Failure to comply with this agreement will put in jeopardy the package of international financial support being made available.”

Translation: the economic control framework is a monstrously blunt instrument that takes no account of vulnerable children’s needs, but if we don’t comply with it, the EU-IMF will pull the plug on us.

The framework had already caused consternation at third level, when it appeared that rigid control of recruitment would derail research that is vital to the future of the economy and also helps to fund third-level education. Nearly 25 years ago, Fianna Fáil ran an utterly cynical election campaign using the slogan “Health cuts hurt the sick, the old, and the handicapped”. They won the election, if only as a minority government, and then proceeded to implement the very same cuts.

Fine Gael and Labour ran a campaign this time that ignored the fact that their hands would be completely tied in government, and now we are watching the cuts affect – guess who? The old, the sick, the poor, people with disabilities and those who care for them.

In order to attempt to resuscitate the confidence fairy, we have to kill off things that are vitally important. Children with special educational needs will falter and lag behind if they do not receive additional help. Children who do not have English as a first language, and are unlucky enough to attend a school where less than 25 per cent of pupils face the same challenge, will see language support cut to two years.

Traveller children appear utterly expendable, with 773 of the proposed cuts in learning support posts happening to people assigned to work with Travellers.

As a teacher at second level, I see a double blow landing. Older teachers with a wealth of experience are retiring early, while the younger ones left behind are being expected to work longer hours for less pay and with few prospects of job security. Burnout and disillusionment inevitably result.

Don’t mention “permanent and pensionable” to most young second-level teachers. They don’t know what it means. The public will have little sympathy that teachers, under the Croke Park deal, are expected to work for the equivalent of an extra week while simultaneously swallowing pay cuts. Pity about them, is the common response.

However, a teacher staying back for a three-hour meeting after school will not have the energy for the voluntary extra-curricular activities that are often the highlight of a pupil’s life in school.

Tired teachers are ineffective teachers. Most adults are uneasy dealing with four or five teenagers, but you would think dealing with hundreds of them on a daily basis was a doddle, to hear the way people talk about teachers and their “cushy” conditions.

I don’t have a simple solution. I don’t want to see my country disintegrate still further. I am as scared as the next person of the alternatives. But all I know is that no amount of clapping will revive the poisoned hopes of children who do not receive the support they need at a most crucial stage of their lives.

* bobrien@irishtimes