It does beg the question how on earth we are supposed to pay for a world class special education set up, a world class mental health service, world class cancer services, world class welfare system etc. etc.

Less than half the countries workers pay tax. Not to mention all the welfare scroungers who demand these world class services on Joe Duffy every second day.

Yeah, there is no tax on buying or selling things, nor is there any tax on things like roads, or services like rubbish collection.

And of course anyone who gets social welfare is a "scrounger".

They took a tenner off me yesterday for have a Laser/Bank card, Stamp Duty they called it.

We never had them before - so why now? we cannot afford them - everything is about affordibility.

Yes - if we can help our best and brightest match their U.S counterparts and start companies then we might get out of this mess and that would benefit many people.

the 1200 SNAs are going because the special needs kid they were employed to help has left the system. It used to be the case that SNAs were contracted to look after a specific kid and once the kid left the SNA was no longer required. This changed to the SNAs becoming positions tied to the school so once the special needs kid left the SNA was retained. Usually there were asked to do other jobs just to keep them busy.

the reason the teachers unions are not up in arms is because they don't advocate paying SNAs to assist children that aren't in that school anymore.

__________________
Freedom, Tolerance & Equality of Opportunity

Economic Left/Right: -1.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.33

Its a pity you never had kids then you would know what they do.

Its not about affordability you muppet. Its about using scarce resources efficiently.

The thread mentions 50% of the workforce pay no income tax. Maybe we could create a 10% tax rate ?

yes and then they can decide to pack up these countries and leave because their former classmates are getting paid too much and the poles or whoever will work for cheaper. Former classmates end up on welfare and because of poor education have poor re employment oppuutunities.

Blayney was on the Radio last night. They mentioned that there has been a huge upsurge in the people applying for CAO courses. The general consensus was it was because there were no jobs available. The FF line was that their policies were working in that people understand we need further education to tackle the Smart Economy

SNAs are employed in schools to assist children with difficulties---who are assessed as being entitled to such help---in the classroom. They are an invaluable resource for children who need them. They will of course have to be cut, as they are now deemed to be part of "the bloated public sector" , which is the reason "we are where we are" and which now must be slashed, axed etc

A lot of them were employed during the boom. The people who scream loudest now about slashing the public sector, screamed loudest then as well when they demanded certain services and responses from government agencies and departments which they felt they were not getting. Hence bodies were set up to deal with their pet issues (now called quangos) One area that enraged parents and had them ringing the Joe Duffy show was the miserly way SNAs were being allocated to schools....Here the country is, awash with money, and my child, who has been assessed, has no SNA.......what kind of priorities have we in this country etc etc...... So lots more SNAs were employed to quell the rebellion....

Of course they should follow the child. But many children, often from deprived backgrounds were not entitled to an SNA, but were coping very poorly with school---timetables, organization of homework, schoolbooks, getting around a large school to different classrooms, with different teachers, truancy etc.. If the child the SNA had originally been assigned to, left school, in some cases the SNA was re-assigned to one or several of these children
But now an audit has been done and all that will stop. Why are schools and teachers not up in arms? Because they are reeling from the shock of of so many cutbacks, some in the core areas, ----school completion funds cut (for deprived children also), teacher numbers cut so needy or weak children are totally lost in large mixed-ability classrooms, and very able children cannot be fast-tracked in smaller Honours groups.

Teachers are busy band-aiding as usual---taking out small Honours or weak Pass groups for extra tuition , devising incentive programmes to encourage at-risk children to stay in school, running after-school maths clubs, science or homework clubs for kids who would benefit, breakfast mornings for vulnerable children, uploading entire terms lesson plans onto computers for special needs kids who access IT (kids with Aspergers Syndrome for example).........just business as usual