Excuse me why exactly has SF got education AGAIN?

facingthefuture

Why has anyone else not taken it? Do you think the DUP are just dodging a sensitive issue. :mad:

They won't be happy until all the children are totally uneducated. God help us all. All you get now is another school performance/show.....the primaries have turned into schools for the performing arts.

(Don't get me wrong, I like a musical but things are totally imbalanced).

Old_Git

could it be no one wants the poison chalice.
There are two departments no one wants ,health and education .

absoluteutopia

Its a no win job, maybe this time they could get someone other than a halfwit to run it though?

Snoozle

absoluteutopia wrote: »

Its a no win job, maybe this time they could get someone other than a halfwit to run it though?

hey, I saw that halfwit interviewed and she said that the huge success she has had in reforming education here is the biggest, and proudest achievement of her professional life. It would almost be :rotfl:if it didn't have such serious consequences for a whole generation of children. So it makes me :mad: instead.

NAR

facingthefuture wrote: »

Why has anyone else not taken it? Do you think the DUP are just dodging a sensitive issue. :mad:

You obviously don't know how the process works. DUP, as largest party, had first choice and naturally picked Finance. SF, second largest party, hoose Education as their first choice. No one else got a chance to choose Education.

facingthefuture

NAR wrote: »

You obviously don't know how the process works. DUP, as largest party, had first choice and naturally picked Finance. SF, second largest party, hoose Education as their first choice. No one else got a chance to choose Education.

Sorry, I hadn't heard how it happened - just that it didn't. Why did the DUP take finance - surely they could have given our education priority? Bleedin' politics anyway.:(

irishjohn

facingthefuture wrote: »

Sorry, I hadn't heard how it happened - just that it didn't. Why did the DUP take finance - surely they could have given our education priority? Bleedin' politics anyway.:(

Taking finance was essential to the DUP - if they had opted for education then SF would have grabbed finance. I must say I prefer the UK route to prosperity (or in reality today - avoiding bankruptcy by cutting debt) to the ROI route to penury and bankruptcy. In the end regardless of what is done to education those who want to get an education will get one, those who think they have a right to it may get one if they work hard enough, but looking after the purse strings will ensure we have a stable economic environment in which to thrive, therefore education is not and never will be the primary choice of portfolio for the strongest party.

facingthefuture

irishjohn wrote: »

those who want to get an education will get one, those who think they have a right to it may get one if they work hard enough, but looking after the purse strings will ensure we have a stable economic environment in which to thrive, therefore education is not and never will be the primary choice of portfolio for the strongest party.

Thanks for the explanation John:) I still quake at the thought of how sf and the catholic bishops are doing their best to ruin the good standard of our education. Instead of pulling those under achieving up, they have decided to pull everyone else down.

One other thing, are the politicians, regardless of what party they are from able to deal with the white collared crime committed in the banking sector. Who has so far been sent to prison for stealing our pensions etc....is anyone responsible? Why are we still handing these banksters millions? Lets hope the DUP have the wit and the nerve to actually DO something to redress this.

jeffer

absoluteutopia wrote: »

Its a no win job, maybe this time they could get someone other than a halfwit to run it though?

I think they only appointed that woman to annoy the UUP and I could even see them doing it again for the same reason.

irishjohn

facingthefuture wrote: »

Thanks for the explanation John:) I still quake at the thought of how sf and the catholic bishops are doing their best to ruin the good standard of our education. Instead of pulling those under achieving up, they have decided to pull everyone else down.

One other thing, are the politicians, regardless of what party they are from able to deal with the white collared crime committed in the banking sector. Who has so far been sent to prison for stealing our pensions etc....is anyone responsible? Why are we still handing these banksters millions? Lets hope the DUP have the wit and the nerve to actually DO something to redress this.

Two interesting comments - I am no expert but will gladly give you my views.

I don't think the standard of our schools, be they Catholic or State, is bringing down the standard of achievement. I believe children should leave promary school being able to read write and count effectively. Maybe we try to cram too much into primary education. Parental help and interest is vital. Where it is evident the schooling succeeds - where parents don't really show any interest or participation the children don't learn much - no different to previous generations back as far as I have been around in education (1960s as a pupil, 1970s as a teacher)

Once they have achieved an acceptable level of literacy and numeracy, they are also beginning to show whether their potential favours academic pursuits or vocational pursuits and they should be able to specialise in those fields, which the old grammar / seconday system provided - and enable people to move from one type of school to another if they had been wrongly assessed at 11. But whatever type of education we offer - if the prents just want to leave it to the experts - their children will adopt every avoidance tactic around and will probably fail. I doubt if any Education Minister will adopt a "parent centred" approach to education.

White collar crimes you describe are maybe to be put at the door of previous UK governments - Conservatives who removed lots of financial regulations to try to build the economy, and unfortunately gave those bankers the opportunity to gamble our finances - and in many cases lose their bets. This has been followed up by Gordon Brown grabbing back an important tax dividend from the UK pension scheme providers in 1997 and destroying what was regarded to be one of the finest final salary schemes worldwide - but thats not the only elements which have brought us to where we are today. As a society we have developed into a must have society and decided cheap debt to provide instant gratification was the best route to take, leaving too many people with big debts, no savings and worse - no real skill to budget effectively to be able to manage in good times and bad. The reality therefore is that we could all be accused of crimes against safeguarding our financial futures. I'm sorry to say I do not think the boys and girls of Stormont have the wherewithall to turn this small place into an ecomomically prosperous society - not when they harness all their energiies into activities to keep them popular, such as not facing up to the fact that we can no longer afford to include our water service within the rates system, removing prescription charges totally just because such a large percentage of the population don't have to pay anyway, trying to increase the relevance and popularity of languages which will do no good whatever to our economic progress, Irish and Ulster Scots to be specific. Thhere are many "traditions" which we cannot coninue to maintain, and we need to make a concerted effort to get off our backsides and make it happen. Here are a couple of examples of how important we see tourism as a way to grow our economy -

At the end of June we have daylight until very late into the evening - so what time does the bus service down to the Giants Causeway, and the visitor centre close down for the day every day around that time? 5.30pm.

Sunday mornings in Belfast, where many people are on the last day of their weekend visit to N Ireland - if they leave their hotel after breakfast to get their last taste of what Belfast has to offer they find a virtual ghost town, no shops open until 1pm when most are on their way back to the airport!!

Thats how I feel about things.

fredy34

Well whats left of the education system is this country will be flushed down the toilet this time for good. As a teacher myself, my own school has been rapidly declining over the past 3 years. Im not naming the school but its a good grammar school. My classes are now at bursting point. A level classes where i had 12 pupils getting mostly As and Bs are now up to 18 pupils, i simply cant provide the same level of support, my grades have started to slip.

The school has less and less money, already we are having to think about scrapping many educational visits and sporting activities. Is this really the sort of education we want for our children?

On a different note i had to suffer 2 talks by the uneducated Catriona Ruanne. Awful. One of my 16 year old pupils asked me 'who is that woman, she isnt even talking properly'



Its a sad day but by the time our current year 8s are in year 12 they will be in a very different position to today and one that im not looking forward to.

Grim