Education – Page 20 – Slugger O'Toole

“NI simply cannot opt out of taking the difficult measures that apply in every other part of the UK”

Pete Baker on August 16, 2007, 7:26 pm

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Sinn Féin’s Caitríona Ruane isn’t the only Minister facing pay-related problems within her brief, as this UTV report notes. College lecturers have rejected a 2% increase in pay offer from employers at further education institutes. And, interestingly, the Employment and Learning Minister, the UUP’s Sir Reg Empey, agrees with them.. in that “The further education lecturers have won the argument. Pay parity has the support of my department..” But the statement includes an interesting attempt at deflecting criticism from his …

Republic’s schools struggling with higher maths?

Mick Fealty on August 16, 2007, 1:09 pm

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Leaving Cert yesterday, A Levels today. And the Irish Times has it‘s usual ‘lovely girls’ picture on the front page. Yesterday’s results brought mixed news. Maths and Science performances were noticiably down on previous years: “Only 6,710 of the 50,000 taking the Leaving achieved an honours mark (Grade C or higher ) in maths. Four times this figure (24,136) gained an honour in English.” Yesterday, Olwyn Enright attacked Education Minister, Mary Hanafin: “Once again, the Leaving Certificate results have exposed …

“Wonderful” star, indeed

Pete Baker on August 16, 2007, 2:30 am

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Excuse me while I drool over the wondrous images from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer of this “faster than a speeding bullet” star, Mira. As reported by the BBC. It’s a binary star with a smaller orbiting companion and was first recorded in 1596 but the tail is only revealed by imaging in the ultra-violet part of the electro-magnetic spectrum. NASA have also put together an amazing animation – Quicktime video 6 Mb or Hi-Res QT video here 74 Mb. In …

Classroom assistants ballot on strike action

Pete Baker on August 14, 2007, 5:31 pm

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As the Belfast Telegraph reports, the Northern Ireland Executive Education Minister, Sinn Féin’s Caitríona Ruane, could be heading for a confrontation with Nipsa who are balloting their members on strike action after talks broke down on a new pay deal for classroom assistants. [pdf file] The Minister had approved an offer from the Education Boards on 31 May, but Nipsa members rejected that offer in June and despite further meetings between the two sides no new offer has been made.From …

Radical new future delayed

Pete Baker on July 20, 2007, 8:40 pm

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The Education Minister Caitriona Ruane has declared her intention to press ahead with the Review of Public Administration reforms of the Education sector.. but it will be delayed until April 2009. The official statement also mentions the area based planning from the 61 recommendations of the Bain Report but not the report itself. However, let’s be optimistic.. we might, after all – subject to the scrutiny of the Education Committee and the Assembly – see that “foundation for a radical …

“‘Ratio- nal’ means what it says”

Pete Baker on July 10, 2007, 7:40 pm

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A C Grayling has been tweaking the noses of supernaturalists in his recent posts at CommentisFree, and getting some responses that wouldn’t pass the Slugger ‘ball not man’ rule.. [although they wouldn’t be completely unknown in some of our recent comment zones – Ed]. Those responses have, though, prompted a robust argument from the philosophy prof.. on the nature of rational beliefs and a hope for reasonable discussion. The point to extract from these thoughts is that every belief or …

“Give me my jetpack, and give me my x-ray goggles”

Pete Baker on July 7, 2007, 4:17 pm

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I know I told Steorn not to come back until they had actually done the science but, having asked why the Guardian hadn’t sent Ben Goldacre to do the interview last year, I feel obliged to point to his Bad Science column today where he makes a couple of good points, as usual, including one about the media coverage. Almost every newspaper gave it lavish coverage in return for this modest expenditure. Steorn has claimed that its machine is validated …

Spinning onward..

Pete Baker on July 6, 2007, 7:27 pm

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Further to the botched attempt by Steorn to demonstrate, in public, their perpetual publicity motion machine they’ve announced today that it’s been postponed indefinitely. Hopefully the people at Kinetica [Have they been told yet? – Ed] got paid in advance.. As for Steorn.. go away and don’t come back until you’ve done the science. Adds Someone should probably tell the Guardian’s TechBlog too.. But Interestingly the cameras are still on.. Pete Baker

Why the sky is blue and other illuminating information..

Pete Baker on July 1, 2007, 5:55 pm

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Iain Dale shakes his head, quite rightly, at the supernaturalist Church of England Bishop of Carlisle who is claiming that the recent floods in England are a supernatural judgement of sorts – “We are reaping the consequences of our moral degradation, as well as the environmental damage that we have caused.” – as, no doubt, the recent flooding in Belfast was.. The Bishop has in mind the Equality Act – which other supernaturalists also complained about. No better timing, then, …

The Blair Chair..

Pete Baker on June 26, 2007, 5:22 pm

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Newly re-elected Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has announced that the Irish Government is to provide an endowment of £5million to fund a professorship at the Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool – The Blair Chair of Irish Studies.. [Better make sure the lid’s tightly screwed down on that past then – Ed] Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said: “It is a fitting way to mark Blair’s immense and historic contribution in helping bring peace to Ireland.” Pete Baker

on the collective responsibility of the Executive – redux

Pete Baker on June 19, 2007, 10:15 pm

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The Education Minister, Sinn Féin’s Catriona Ruane, has warned MLAs of being “ostriches with their heads in the sand” in pressing for the introduction of expensive measures without taking into account the existing budgetary pressures on individual Ministers. “I would welcome additional resources to support many priorities within the education service. However like all ministers, and we play as a team, I have a budget within which I must operate and difficult decisions to make on spending priorities.” If that …

Inquiries, and reviews, continue..

Pete Baker on June 1, 2007, 9:41 pm

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At the end of a recent post, on the Environment Minister reviewing the local government arrangements, I suggested we would probably see similar reviews of other contentious, to some, plans. And today, tucked in at the end of this report on the Education Committee’s discussion on the threatened closures of 14 schools, and Committee Chairman Sammy Wilson’s description of the planned arrangements as “Byzantine”, is this snippet The education committee is to conduct further inquiries into Professor Bain`s 61 recommendations. …

What if, there had been full secular schooling…

Mick Fealty on May 31, 2007, 1:25 pm

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Not sure I completely agree that France is the best example of secular schooling, since there is a significant Catholic sector there that does well out of parental dissatisfaction over the way enormous state Lycees and Colleges churn through correspondingly large numbers of students. But Beano believes not only that secular schooling is the way forward, but points out that in its early history, Northern Ireland attempted to roll out just such a project. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of …

In praise of selection and educational elites

Mick Fealty on May 30, 2007, 8:10 pm

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The Belfast Telegraph is giving away mock 11+ papers each day this week. A reminder, if such were needed, Northern Ireland sits outside the emerging consensus on the undesirability of grammar schools. However, that’s not how the Economist sees it. It argues not simply that selection is good, but that the real problem is that government is not fully harnessing the power of the market ensure resources flow the ‘hard to teach’ kids as well as to the bright poor. …

Oh, and another thing…

Mick Fealty on May 30, 2007, 3:23 pm

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SuperSoupy points out that the figures offered by DENI, point to a deficit in the number of Catholics who declared themselves as such the 2001 Census. SS writes: The most recent school leaver statistics showed 20% more Catholics (12,900) than Protestants (10,800)and 1,900 others leaving school in 2005/06 only 280 ethnic kids. (table 6) Over a 1,000 Catholic children leaving school but educated outside the CCMS. 20% is a high differential for those of us who remain deeply suspicious of …

Catholic schools still underperforming at the bottom, but…

Mick Fealty on May 30, 2007, 2:54 pm

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Fascinating statistics coming out on the Department of Education. Girls do better than boys with Higher education: “85.8% of grammar school girls left school with two or more A levels or equivalent compared to 73.2% of grammar school boys (the corresponding proportions for secondary schools were 31.3% for girls and 15.0% for boys”. And, under the same measure, Catholics are doing better than Protestants: “47.3% of Catholic school leavers left with two or more A levels compared to 41.0% of …

Peaceline to run through integrated primary…

Mick Fealty on May 23, 2007, 8:46 pm

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New start at Stormont, but Belfast is still finding ways to continue to segregate its population. This time, bizarrely, the Peace Wall is to be built in the middle of the playground of Belfast’s only Integrated Primary School. Kathryn Torney in the Belfast Telegraph: Despite Northern Ireland moving into a new era, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal that the Northern Ireland Office is planning to erect a new peaceline – in the playground of an integrated primary school. A 25ft-high …

Trimble on the new Tory education policy…

Mick Fealty on May 23, 2007, 6:55 pm

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A moment from the debate last night on the Tory shift on Grammar Schools, but which has been burning all week in Britain… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

“Academic selection entrenches advantage, it does not spread it”

Mick Fealty on May 16, 2007, 10:11 pm

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Here’s an interesting challenge to the DUP’s education policy. David Willets has just dropped the policy bombshell on his own party that they no longer support Grammar Schools, or indeed any schools based on academic selection… Mr Willetts also distanced himself from the traditional Tory belief in academic selection, saying it was “fantasy” to say selection at the age of 11, which takes place in grammar schools, could be fair. He said the Tories could use legislation “left behind” by …

Good news; bad news…

Mick Fealty on May 16, 2007, 7:23 pm

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Not sure if this was a studied announcement, but it seems whilst Nigel Dodds is giving us the good news that there is more employment than ever: “the latest claimant count stands at 25,400, down 2,900 over the year… the unemployment rate is the second lowest among UK regions”. But Reg Empey has to report that literacy levels in Northern Ireland mean that a quarter of the potential workforce cannot read or write properly. “The economic loss to our community …