Teacher's PET

An insider's guide to education

• What is happening between DCU and IT Athlone? Dark rumours are sweeping the eduction world that DCU is about to annex the Athlone campus as part of it plan for world domination. And Athlone, with its designs on university status, is a willing partner.

In fact, the courtship is only in its infancy. Both colleges have teamed up on research and other projects. So far, co-operation has been relatively modest. But watch this space.

• Which bar has the highest consumption of alcohol in the State? We heard wicked rumours that it is Belfield Bar. This could not be true. Could it ?

• Hopeful signs that the Freedom of Information Unit at the Department of Education will gets its house in order. After complaints from hacks and murmurs of disquiet from some senior officials, change is on the way. The Department could help by allocating more resources to the hard-pressed and under-resourced staff in the unit.

• Congrats to Mary Meaney, the new head of the Council of Directors of the ITs. Meaney, the current director of IT Blanchardstown is clever and ambitious. You will be hearing more from her - and more about her.

• While other colleges boast about some minor achievements, NUI Maynooth has been getting on with the task of opening up Irish education. The college is the only university which has met the Government's target for mature students - over 15 per cent of its entrants fall into this category. The other colleges lag well behind.
• That tough letter on supervision from Pat Burke, assistant secretary in the Department of Education, to ASTI boss Charlie Lennon has caused quite a stir. Burke told Lennon in no uncertain terms that the union knew the full implications of the supervision deal before the ballot last November. ASTI is not accustomed to this kind of straight-talking.

The letter has been joyfully seized on by Lennon's critics in the ASTI as a stick to beat him with. This conveniently ignores the fact that few of them grasped the full implications of the deal.

The question now is what approach will the hawks on the ASTI Standing Committee take on the ballot? Will they just dump on Charlie? Or will they stand up and accept their share of the blame?

• Accustomed as they are to bull out in UCD... the escape of a large bull from the veterinary faculty in Belfield recently caused a major security scare. Apparently , the bull made its way onto the Stillorgan dual carriageway before being guided back to the windy campus. Lucky thing!

Got any education gossip? You can e-mail us in confidence at teacherspet@irish-times.ie