Which of these would be sackable offences in your job?

[patslatt]

I'm a teacher, who worked in the private sector for 15 years, and I believe I should be accountable to the Board of Management of the school and not some paper pushing, report drawing, self justifying inspector who is a waste of resources.

Does anyone seriously think a one class snapshot of teachers in action seriously gives the full picture? A whole school inspection costs about 80,000 euro, meanwhile autistic kids cannot get the specialist education they need, while layers upon layers of bureaucracy and quangoes continue across Health and Educcation. I mean FFS schools even have inspectors of SPHE and Religion, commissars for the Soviet Republic of Ireland. The whole thing is grotesque.

If you want to get out of teaching, be paid better and still have all the holidays there are two routes, Union politics, where your salry will be even higher, or do an MA aor PhD and try to become an inspector, especially if you can't hack in the classroom and
would rather tell others who can hack it and didn't escape, how to do it.

One could also try to get on to the Teaching council which now registers teachers and charges them 90 euro a year, when upto two years ago one had only to register once, for life. The Unions agreed to this crap with the Govt, more jobs for the AST/TUI/INTO boy and girl bigwigs. This is in effect another tax on teachers courtesy of the Old Peronist FF Trade Union Alliance. Do the maths about at least 30000 teachers paying 90 euro, a handy turnover of 2.7 million minimum for doing fancy brochrues and other self justifying work.

A friend who was a school principal for 20 years felt the work of inspectors was essential to maintaining teaching standards. An intelligent,perceptive inspector should be able to form a reasonable judgement on the performance of a teacher in a classroom after observing the teacher for parts of a few classes,maybe over an hour or more. There has to be accountability and the fact that inspections are too costly in your opinion is not an argument against inspections,though maybe an argument against their cost and the associated Department of Education bureaucratic bloat.

The Boards of Management of schools have historically been powerless to replace teachers who are permanent staff,thanks to trade unions. Maybe this has changed since former Education Minister Hanafin supposedly allowed poorly performing teachers to be sacked,but I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile,inspectors can press for improvements in teaching methods and performances and can pressure schools' Boards to improve through publication of whole school reports that presumably inform the public on a schools' standards.

What is the official reason for separate inspectors of religion and SPHE,whatever that is?

[west'sawake]

A friend who was a school principal for 20 years felt the work of inspectors was essential to maintaining teaching standards. An intelligent,perceptive inspector should be able to form a reasonable judgement on the performance of a teacher in a classroom after observing the teacher for parts of a few classes,maybe over an hour or more. There has to be accountability and the fact that inspections are too costly in your opinion is not an argument against inspections,though maybe an argument against their cost and the associated Department of Education bureaucratic bloat.

The Boards of Management of schools have historically been powerless to replace teachers who are permanent staff,thanks to trade unions. Maybe this has changed since former Education Minister Hanafin supposedly allowed poorly performing teachers to be sacked,but I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile,inspectors can press for improvements in teaching methods and performances and can pressure schools' Boards to improve through publication of whole school reports that presumably inform the public on a schools' standards.

What is the official reason for separate inspectors of religion and SPHE,whatever that is?

There are subject inspectors for each subject, on average every secondary school has inspections in at least one subject area every year, (this is the case with my own school). Whole school evaluations on the other hand are done at radom and on average a school should expected to be inspected for full evaluation within five to seven years.

I agree with you re teacher accountability and a B of M's hands being tied, to a certain degree, but definitely the wasteful sham of random inspections and whole school evaluations is not the solution. I am no fan of the teaching unions, I'm not a member, they too are part of the problem of waste and unaccountability. I believe the solution lies in having a stronger B of M with external expertise as in a non executive director on a board of a company, but in a spirit of volunteerism. I am against centralisation and at present see no real quality of choice in schools be it in school specialisation or ethos. Most schools are offering what every other school offers and 'denominational' ones are practically secularised anyway and indistinguishable from community and VEC schools, the R.E exam course and Junior Cert is a joke.

Mark Twain said there were two certainties in this world, death and taxes, add to that self justifying layers off bureaucracy, especially within Education and Health. The reality of grade inflation is one of the symptoms of a failed, child centred, flawed, pedagogy, allied to an excessive rights culture where children are expected to be treated as adults. The proverbial chickens are coming home to roost with this all must have prizes philosophy, all very dominant within the D of E and S whose ideas have become reality in a new primary school curriculum as well as a loaded broad secondary school curriculum with the biggest core curriculum in the OECD at Junior Cert level, I suspect. There really is no depth of tuition or focus on Maths, Language, or Science, just a surface mish mash of too many subjects. Examined in 11 at Junior Cert and also timetabled for P.E. SPHE (Social, Personal and Health Education), R.E. and C.S.P.E. (Civic, Social and Personal Education). These last four in total for eight periods a week.

What we have is standardisation by the lowest standard and the D o E with its army of experts, policy wonks, and inspectorate as well as the Unions, are the main culprits, the victims being children and their parents.

The inspectors reports are as likely to lead to an incompetent teacher being sacked as FF admitting it blew the boom.

[Mic]

Would you agree that people shouldn't feel obliged to work if their employer isn't paying them to? Unions don't enter into it.

Conor, can I ask what you mean by this?
Are you asking if somebody thinks their employer isn't paying them enough, if they have the right to quit? The answer to that is pretty obviously yes.
Are you asking if somebody thinks their employer isn't paying them enough, if they have the right to expect to go to their work, do nothing and still collect their salary? I should have thought the answer to that was pretty obviously no.
Are you asking if somebody thinks their employer isn't paying them enough, they have the right to withdraw their labour and not be paid until such time as they negotiate a satisfactory solution with their employer? Now that might be a more interesting question!

[pjoz]

Diverting clients funds from an investment earning a 20.9% yield into one that earned a 0% return should also be listed.

[pjoz]

There's no such thing as independent commissions in this country. Anyway, all it takes is for the TD or minister to deny he said it, and it becomes one person's word against another.

unless the journalist has it on tape, then you have the ignorant git

[seabhcan]

The fact that Gardai are expected to buy and use their own laptops on mobile phones for police work is a quiet scandal, and also a security risk.

[bobbysands81]

Which of these would be sackable offences in your job?

1.Refusal to cooperate with new work practices
2.Refusal to cooperate with staff redeployment
3.Refusal to answer phones
4.Non-cooperation with reform of the public sector
5.Planned strike against seven Dublin hospitals for 48 hours [a strike against an absolutely essential service Ed]
6.Teachers refusing to meet with school inspectors before inspectors' evaluations of schools
7.The Gardai to withdraw the use of personal equipment such as mobile phones, laptops and digital cameras [on which the policing system has come to depend heavily*. Ed]
8.THe Gardai not responding to phone calls when off duty,[ which presumably could deprive the service of emergency backup in the event of riots or major gangland activity. Ed]
9.Social welfare offices closed for a full day
10.Full or half day strikes
11.All-out strike if there are disciplinary actions or docked pay for latter,[so the right to strike on full pay! Ed]
12.Non-cooperation with new work changes to medical primary care teams
13.Refusal to redeploy to other work locations in medical care facilities
14.Refusal to cooperate with hospital health care audits

Source for the above list of 14, Sunday Business Post, "Industrial Unrest: What Actions Unions Are Taking"

In essence,the public sector workers want to sabotage and disrupt the operations of government at no personal cost to themselves in terms of lost wages.


*For decades successive governments have been unbelievably negligent in underfunding or denying Gardai essentials such as a modernised high secure phone system,rudimentary personal computers and even a basic necessity for frontline staff,stab proof vests. Maybe the Garda management's insistence that IT managers must be gardai hasn't helped matters. Now the government will have to rush out and buy laptops,mobiles and cameras,but they should be able to buy cheaply at wholesale in the recession!

The Fianna Fail mouthpiece has spoken!

[loaded32]

90% of them would be sackable in my job!

[Conor]

Conor, can I ask what you mean by this?
Are you asking if somebody thinks their employer isn't paying them enough, if they have the right to quit? The answer to that is pretty obviously yes.
Are you asking if somebody thinks their employer isn't paying them enough, if they have the right to expect to go to their work, do nothing and still collect their salary? I should have thought the answer to that was pretty obviously no.
Are you asking if somebody thinks their employer isn't paying them enough, they have the right to withdraw their labour and not be paid until such time as they negotiate a satisfactory solution with their employer? Now that might be a more interesting question!

I thought it fairly self-explanatory. I wasn't specifically asking any of those hypothetical questions you mention.

[sauntersplash]

I think you have just explained why Aer Lingus is going down the drain and Ryanair making profits. Unions are a cancer on business, no way I'd tolerate one if I was starting up a company.

...well yes, but "business" as you understand it, is a cancer on human happiness.