An insider's guide to education

Should Department of Education have role in third level if lacking expertise?

That critical review of the Department of Education by senior civil servants is an important document – which will become a key source for academics, researchers and anyone with an interest in education.

What’s clear from the document is that the department does not have the capability to manage areas like higher and further education, despite the excellence of various senior officials. Essentially, the Department of Education remains “The Department for Schools and Teachers”; it has no real active engagement in third-level education.

This , in turn, raises questions about the role of the Higher Education Authority (HEA), which is supposed to manage the third-level sector in conjunction with the department. Both the department and the HEA recently completed a joint document which outlines how they should work together.

But should the department have a role in higher education when it has so little expertise?

Tracking down that review

Several readers have contacted us to complain how that review is impossible to find on the Department of Education website. Here's the link: per.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/ORP-Third-Report.pdf

Is Usit ripping off students?

Is USIT – the student travel company – ripping off students?

Recently, a student friend was charged €1,300 for a return trip to the USA. This included payments to the US embassy for J1 clearance, insurance and one “free“ internal flight.

It still seems very expensive. With thousands of students heading to America, USIT can surely secure low-cost air fares – even to the west coast.

€1,300 for a return trip to the US? Someone, somewhere is making a tidy profit!

Taking on the unions

The review of the Department of Education also raised very pointed questions about the department’s deferential approach to the teacher unions. Implicit in the document is the suggestion that the department rolls over when the teacher unions come calling.

That may explain why Ireland has some of the world’s best paid teachers – even though the education system remains chronically under funded.

Education reforms under the Croke Park deal underline the timidity of the department. Here was a once-off opportunity to resolve a huge number of issues which have long obsessed the department.

The department could have pressed for some or any of the following; in-service training during those long summer holidays; a more robust inspection regime and tougher procedures for under-performing teachers; oral exams during the Easter break; new arrangements which would require all teachers to be in school during office hours; shorter holidays and a common school which is actually respected by schools.

Instead, it secured one additional hour per week of teaching and “concessions” on parents teacher meetings after school hours.

The challenge for the new secretary general of the department , Seán O Foghlu, is to change this culture where it’s the unions rather then the department who appear to be calling the shots. But that’s no easy task.

Feeding the hunger

The Harry Potter effect is at work again in schools.

Teachers report how the success of the Hunger Games movie is drawing even the most reluctant readers back to the book shelf. Better still, young readers are also reading the two additional books in the trilogy.

email: sflynn@irishtimes.com