If You Think Education is Expensive, Try Ignorance

Tuesday December 23, 2008 10:02

by Mark C - ASTI (Pers. Caps.)

Open Letter to all TDs asking them to roll back on the Cuts to Education announced inBudget 2008

This is an open letter, sent this morning to all TDs using the form at contact.ie, asking for the cuts to education announced in Budget 2008 to be rolled back on.

Feel free to copy and send it yourself to all or any TDs or modify it to suit your own school/constituency.

If only 10% on indymedia.ie users send it to all TDs (about 2,000 people) that will mean 332,000 emails will be sent (2000 users multiplied by 166 TDs) and it will only take you one minute to copy the letter, fill out the form, and hit SEND. I can't but think it might make some difference.

Dear TDs,

This is an open letter to you all, asking you to do your utmost at this very crucial time to revert the impending cuts to our education system that were announced in Budget 2008.

These cuts will be disastrous for our education system, our communities, our society at large, and, ultimately, our economic system. As ex-President of Harvard University said: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance". If billions can be found to help our ailing banking system (the system that provides the foundation for our economic base), surely money can be found for our education system - the system that will sustain and develop that base into the future.

Below I have listed some points that you might consider at your convenience and report back to me on as soon as you get a chance.

1) Presently we have the second biggest class sizes in Europe. When the cuts take effect, we will have the biggest class sizes in Europe.
2) The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) consistently places Ireland 29th worst out of 30 for spending on education. When the cuts take effect, we will rank 30th out of 30 – i.e. worst.
3) The cuts will mean up to five teachers gone from Mercy College, Woodford (as deputies Ulick Burke, TD and Noel Treacy, TD have brought to your attention in a Dáil debate); in perspective, this means up to 1/5 of the school's teaching staff.
4) This figure comes from:
a. Loss of Special Needs post
b. Loss of ex-quota post (woodwork)
c. Loss of Home-School-Community Liason Officer
d. Drop in student numbers
5) The school will lose all funding for Transtion Year.
6) The school will lose all funding for Leaving Cert. Applied.
7) The school will lose funding for its special needs department.
a. We are concerned that students may opt to not take Transition Year if there is no funding; with a lack of funding it will be difficult to carry on some of the modules that the Transition Year enjoys.
b. The same may be true of Leaving Cert. Applied.
8) The government is committed to setting up Ireland as a knowledge-based economy (as we can no longer compete with the developing economies of the East in terms of labour and production costs).
9) It will be difficult in the extreme to develop a knowledge-based economy if the education cuts come in to effect. You do not build such an economy by taking away resouces and frontline staff.
10) The Minister for Finance announced in his Budget 2008 that the government were committed to helping the most vulnerable in our society. There is a huge gulf between what WE consider to be vulnerable people (the old, the infirm, the young) and what the government consider to be vulnerable people (banks, big businesses, and those who got us in the mess we find ourselves in).

I trust you will give this your urgent attention and I wish you all a very happy Christmas.

Regards,
Mark C
http://www.contact.ie

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Comments (4 of 4)

readership

by counter

Tue Dec 23, 2008 12:19

you think that indymedia has twenty thousand individual readers?

I seriously doubt that.

stats

by Godot

Tue Dec 23, 2008 13:46

Has ranged from 14,482 to 22,602 per day this month.

lies damned lies

by stat

Tue Dec 23, 2008 15:33

I simply don't believe those statistics. One of the things that leads me to doubt them is that if someone posts a youtube video here, even to the front page, it rarely gets more than about seventy hits.

In one case, when the same video (one of the interviews with Maura Harrington) was posted on the Irish Times website a day or so after it was posted here, it got 3,000 plays.

Presumably you don't think that huge numbers of people accessing indymedia are shy of pressing play on the videos do you?

Education Cuts | Update Letter

by Mark C - ASTI - Pers. Caps.

Tue Jan 27, 2009 09:40

This is the text of a letter that I sent to each TD today, from Contact.ie

___

Dear TD,

I recently sent an email to every TD in the country asking you to do your utmost to reverse the cuts to education that were announced in Budget 2008.

I received a very detailed letter from Minister O'Keefe via Deputy Niall Blaney; one of the points in this letter was that 200 teachers would lose their jobs because of the cuts. Deputy Ulick Burke and Deputy Noel Treacy stated in the Dáil on 16th December that the school in which I teach, Mercy College Woodford, Co. Galway stands to lose 20 per cent of its teaching staff (in excess of 4 teachers). Many of you may not have heard this figure spoken, as the Dáil was very empty on this day; see the video posted here to listen to the motions: http://www.markconroy.net/content/if-you-think-educatio...try-i...

It seems to me highly unfair that up to 4 or 5 of the teachers that will lose their jobs will be from our small school, whilst the other 196 (or so) teachers will be spread out amongst the other 700 (or so) secondary schools.

Please find it in yourself to do something to be more equitable and democratic in your slashing of jobs. Perhaps one-third of a teacher in each school would garner the 200 job losses needed to fulfill the cuts expressed in Budget 2008.

Yours sincerely,
Mark Conroy
28 Forest Glade
Portumna
Co. Galway

Mark Conroy
31 Kylebrook
Portlaoise
Co. Laois

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If You Think Education is Expensive, Try Ignorance

Comments (4 of 4)