Excuse me why exactly has SF got education AGAIN?

steveymp

warmhands.coldheart wrote: »

OMG John O'Dowd is now our Education Minister... Mind you it's not much better than having Edwin Poots as our Health Minister!! We are in for a long 3 or 4 Years!!!!!!!

Dumb and Frickin Dumber :eek:

Mr Poots has announced that he will look into the proposal for the North West Radiotherapy Centre, someone should tell him Uncle Peter said it would be built and staffed as soon as possible before the election took place.

I wonder does John have any kids ?

I see from his resume he is a school governor
"John is active in community politics as a board member of a number of community projects, an advisor to the Community Association and as a school Governor."

I wonder does he have his kids educated in another country like our previous incumbrant ?

wifeforlife

If parents took responsibility for their children and their education it wouldn't matter who the minister was.

Ok so my daughters school doesn't do school trips anymore - I can take her to W5, Giants Causeway, Navan Fort and the many other educational places we used to go to as kids with the school. I know it's unfair they don't have the budget but where does these days?

I take full responsibility for my child - therefore I don't care who the ministers are in any department. They're pretty much all eejits claiming their expenses, sure what experience and or education do they have to be running the place

NAR

warmhands.coldheart wrote: »

OMG John O'Dowd is now our Education Minister... Mind you it's not much better than having Edwin Poots as our Health Minister!! We are in for a long 3 or 4 Years!!!!!!!

Only 1 year and then ALL the posts will be allocated under D'Hondt, subject to the legislation being passed in the Assembly.

irishjohn

facingthefuture wrote: »

To be fair o is next to i on the keyboard, it was obviously a typo.

May I use my fat fingers as an excuse? But I am genuinely chuffed you took the time to read it so carefully!
:think:

Noelsagan

steveymp wrote: »

Dumb and Frickin Dumber :eek:

I see from his resume he is a school governor
"John is active in community politics as a board member of a number of community projects, an advisor to the Community Association and as a school Governor."

I wonder does he have his kids educated in another country like our previous incumbrant ?

It's incumbent not incumbrant :whistle:

I'm no fan of most of the muppets on the hill but it strikes me that if you're going to call them out on their cognitive abilities or suitability to develop and implement educative policy you'd make a stronger case if you could spell yourself.

jeffer

Poots and O'Dowd - not the sharpest knives in the drawer, are they?

Be very afraid.

BigAndy_79

O'Dowd is a "seen-er and done-r" and has previously been quoted as saying he doesn't care whether his grammar is proper or not. It is hardly appropriate him doing that job....!

tara747

irishjohn wrote: »

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.

Well said.

steveymp wrote: »

Dumb and Frickin Dumber :eek:

Mr Poots has announced that he will look into the proposal for the North West Radiotherapy Centre, someone should tell him Uncle Peter said it would be built and staffed as soon as possible before the election took place.

I wonder does John have any kids ?

I see from his resume he is a school governor
"John is active in community politics as a board member of a number of community projects, an advisor to the Community Association and as a school Governor."

I wonder does he have his kids educated in another country like our previous incumbrant ?

Where do Caitriona Ruane's children go to school then???

BigAndy_79 wrote: »

O'Dowd is a "seen-er and done-r" and has previously been quoted as saying he doesn't care whether his grammar is proper or not. It is hardly appropriate him doing that job....!

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

irishjohn

tara747 wrote: »

Where do Caitriona Ruane's children go to school then???




:eek::eek::eek::eek:

Catriona Ruane lives in the Republic of Ireland and her children attend school locally.

tara747

irishjohn wrote: »

Catriona Ruane lives in the Republic of Ireland and her children attend school locally.

I know that she's FROM the Republic but didn't realise that she still lived there! :eek: Where is she from exactly? Must be a hell of a commute!