Saturday, June 28, 2008
“I don’t know if I would call it a witch-hunt..”
Interesting snippet from yesterday’s Irish News, although I’m not sure the Sinn Féin Bulletin can be accurately called a newspaper.. ANYhoo.. Apparently the Education Minister, Sinn Féin’s Caitriona Ruane, is hearing voices.. [scroll down]
“Look at who controls the media and in whose interest the media works,” Ms Ruane said. “There is, and I am putting this in inverted commas, the old boys’ network and I think that is what you are seeing.
“The voices that we are hearing are the voices of the establishment. What we need to hear are the voices of the people who are pro-change and I am meeting them every day. “I don’t know if I would call it a witch-hunt. What I do know is that there are many people trying to block and frustrate change but I have never let loud voices stop the work I do.”
That would include these ‘old boys’, presumably..
Pete Baker @ 10:44 AM
I suppose one crumb of comfort in all this is Ruane is turning into wonderful evidence for what a crap system of governance mandatory coalition often is.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 11:13 AMI would have thought, considering she is a Minister in Govt., that Cat herself is “the establishment”?
Perhaps she could put them all under surveillance…
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 12:02 PMFair Deal
Your not wrong there, although MS Raune has come in for a lot of nasty stick, with people trying to make her out to be the villain of the peace, instead of those who are opposing her reasonable changes which have a hope of giving the majority of children in the north a better crack and lifes chances.[pass the tin hat please dear]
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 12:43 PMvery snide posting pete but well with in your norm
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 01:02 PMinstead of those who are opposing her reasonable changes which have a hope of giving the majority of children in the north a better crack and lifes chances
----
Removing academic selection is not reasonable, certainly not to the majority of parents , protestant and catholic.
NI education is designed to facilitate the different levels of academic attainment. If secondary schools are failing their pupils then thats a different story
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 01:50 PMYou have to stop reporting the news, Pete. It’s embarrassing to some.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 01:55 PMAcademic selection at 11 seems a pretty arbitrary method of making long term decisions about the future potential of children. Secondly, even judged in its own terms, what is it actually for anymore? I assume that once grammar schools provided a key route to higher education, but that is less the case these days with young adults and mature learners being offered a variety of routes into university. Why apply academic selection at 11 in an era when we are trying to encourage people into HE? What is the rationale for it?
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 02:06 PM“what a crap system of governance mandatory coalition often is”
[aside]FD, your contribution to the debate on the Rathlin ferry operator story would be most welcome. It seems I’m privy to some secrets that have been shared by Ministers Murphy and Robinson and their officials. Let’s see what your forensic skills reveal.
Can I give you a starter? The MV Canna is the main vessel in the tender process. Look at the figures for ‘Quality and comfort of main vessel offered’: RFL 20; CO’D 80.
These and other figures were available to the DFP, the DRD and the Tender Evaluation Committee(?). Were they also made available to RFL, CO’D and the other company that took part in the procurement process.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 02:10 PM“Interesting snippet from yesterday’s Irish News, although I’m not sure the Sinn Féin Bulletin can be accurately called a newspaper..”
Is the “Sinn Fein Bulletin” actually supposed to be a reference to the Irish News? It may be the nationalist paper of note, which I suppose for some people is strikes one, two, and three against it. But it’s also far less party biased than the DUP version of An Phoblact, also known as the News Letter.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 02:12 PMObserver
‘NI education is designed to facilitate the different levels of academic attainment’
Yea, the two different levels of ACADEMIC achievement. Smart and stupid. There’s a whole lot of accommodation for the vast range of abilities and interests that exist in our young people isn’t there.
Besides, CR may have a point. Those most failed by our education system generally don’t have a voice in the wider public. The media/public opinion formers do disproportionately represent those who have succeeded in the education system as they are part of the incumbent social structure that requires the retention of not academic selection per se, but the 11+ in particular for its on ends.
Indeed, if those at the ‘lower’ end of the social/economic stratosphere are shown in the news expressing what may or may not be an genuinely felt grievance, they are heckled by the ‘i know better than you’ crowd. Think about the discussion on slugger several weeks ago regarding President McAleese’s visit in Coleraine. As opposed to disagreeing with what was said and considering the possible reasons for why it was said, the debate quickly descended into deriding the people in their entirety as ‘baseball cap wearing scumbags’.
Just a thought.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 02:17 PM“Is the “Sinn Fein Bulletin” actually supposed to be a reference to the Irish News?”
No, doctor. The Irish News article describes the Bulletin as a newspaper.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 02:35 PMjust because your paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you !
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 02:52 PMGood thought, Michael.
I think the middle class - who let’s face it are well represented among the the human resources of media institutions - expect to do well under academic selection. And indeed academic selection does discriminate in favour of the better off. CR has been trying to take away one of their privileges and they don’t like. Sod ‘em!
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 02:57 PMJust “Smart and stupid” Michael? That is very unfair. In practice - by definition - there’s a wide range of ability across the population of pupils, and schools often respond very creatively to that.
The problem with the Minister’s reforms is that they seek to dumb down and have little support anywhere outside her party apparatus, a few die hard, green, socialist, flat earthers and the theory driven ‘educationalists’ in the Depratment. Time and time gain parents have made it clear that they dont want these changes but we are told they will be stuffed down our throats.
Whatever we do the reality is that some kids are very very bright, some (no matter what anyone does to help and support them) just arent bright at all and there is a large spectrum in between. We need a system that recognises the needs of all of them (in so far as we can).
That wont be achieved by dogma, hollow threats of legal action, shouting at people or trying to stifle any debate or discussion.
Oh yes, and why are some of these kids always ‘failed by the education system’? Teachers can only work with what they have got and with the support of parents and communities. Some kids will not do well in school. They are not academic, its not in their genetic mix, its just not for them. The system needs to help them find what is for them without them being labelled as ‘failures’ or ‘failed by’s’.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 02:59 PM“just because your paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you !”
I fear that is the problem. CR has understood the problem but made no attempt to fix it.
Where is her engagement with those who oppose selection? What about the Primary schools? There were plenty of people who did not buy into the AQE/DUP/UUP analysis. Have they backed her up? Why not?
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 03:07 PMHmmm, genetic mix, cynic… are you sanguine with the notion that academic achievement is in the genes?
Also what do you think it is that parents do want? I’d genuinely be interested to know as a parent myself who sees the current system of academic selection as both irrelevant to the contemporary educational environment and socially divisive.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 03:20 PMAcademic ability is at least partly genetic..
Let’s hear it from the expert!Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 03:38 PMThe woman is off her rocker even the Catholic Church have come out against her, the SDLP must be loving this.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 03:41 PM“The woman is off her rocker even the Catholic Church have come out against her”
Good spin, no substance.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 03:43 PMI’d still like to know what parents want. The most vocal in this debate are middle class parents, who I suspect are mainly concerned to make sure that their children are removed from the orbit of the apparently genetically ignorant working class.
Yes, I don’t doubt that some kids are academically more able than others but do you really think you can make a call on that one at 11 years old?
This debate dove tails neatly into the discourse of “falling standards” and “dumbing-down” but lets be frank about it about, was NI ever known for its intellectual prowess? The idea of perpetuating a system that consolodates the position of a lumpen-middle class is deeply depressing.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 04:11 PMAcademic selection at 11 seems a pretty arbitrary method of making long term decisions about the future potential of children. Secondly, even judged in its own terms, what is it actually for anymore?
Then so is academic selection at 16, 18, 21 and beyond. Perhaps we should allocate jobs based on whether someone really, really wants them rather than whether or not they have the ability?
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 04:47 PMFair point 0b101010.
But what exactly is the reason for taking some children at 11 and siphoning them off into grammar schools? I genuinely don’t understand the logic of this, given that children develop at different rates.
And when I come to think of it you don’t have to sit GCSEs at 16, A levels at 18 and finish university at 21. In practice many people return to education later and take examinations at times appropriate to their own intellectual development. That’s a choice not extended to those selected at 11.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 05:14 PMI found the Dixon Plan worked well. I don’t recall the exams at 14 being much of a big deal and there didn’t seem to be much pressure (maybe that was just me). Anyhow, I went to grammar at 14 and then FE college at 16 (too lazy for A-levels) and then Uni. at 18. Have just completed an MA. I didn’t bother working at school and found that many of those who did, when they went to uni., became total piss-heads.
I just don’t know why selection at 14 hasn’t been seriously contemplated by Cat…
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 05:23 PMcynic
My point was intended to be slightly sarcastic as i was illustrating my opposition to observers assertion that the NI education catered for all academic abilities when it clearly doesn’t. It concentrates much too heavily on the academic aspects of education and in doing so discriminates against those who by their nature or nurture are less able to succeed in this arena.
Instead the process of selection (not academic selection) should be to appropriately route young people into the various paths in which they will thrive. This will of course involve ‘academic selection’, but not the simple ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ division that we currently have. It will involve a differentiation of various schools into more academic pursuits like science or languages or history and less academic (but no less important) like music, or art or drama.
High quality provisions for skills based learning or apprenticeships would of course also be provided and could loosely be defined as non-academic.
What this creates is an educational culture where students have more flexibility to choose various paths that may or may not be highly academic without the stigma of the grammar/ secondary being placed upon them. An whether one wants to believe it or not, an exam at the age of 11 to establish whether a child (A CHILD!!!) is academic or not has serious psychological consequences. Whats worse is that ‘success’ in this academic assessment is strongly correlated with the socio-economic situation of the child’s parents (or lack there of). When we consider that 25% of school leavers in NI cant read to a minimum standard and that the vast majority of this cohort come from lower socio-economic back grounds, we the (educated and listened to) middle classes are basically saying to the poorer in our society that we dont care that they cant read. Infact, its a pretty good thing as it assures our established power base in the media and public opinion.
IMHO reading is a human right, to put restrictions on it based on a desire to shore up the power base of a ‘class’ is immoral.
Despite the fact that i believe CR is useless at her portfolio and politics in general, she may very well have a point about the ‘aul boys’ and the establishments need to maintain the status quo, for the reasons outlined.
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 05:23 PMrabelais: Secondly, even judged in its own terms, what is it actually for anymore?
It is so people can learn at a pace that suits them. How do you teach maths to the most able 10% of pupils - in a streamed Comprehensive with 10 classes per year group, or in a streamed Grammar with 4 classes per year group? And then, how do you teach the least able 10%?
Posted by on Jun 28, 2008 @ 05:24 PM
