What education reforms would you recommend?

[EndDiddlyaism]

i honestly thing reading ann and barry to a few kids is a minimum wage job. i also think a teacher could be thought how to do the job in a week- what on earth takes 4 years in drumcondra? its a joke they spend their time in there learning how to screw the system that is all. i have demanded these so called 'lesson plans' from my kids teachers as that is all we ver hear that they are doing and low and behold they dont exist, i have told the teacher on numerous occassions that they are the most incompetent idiot i have ever met. thank god we will rip up croker soon and these peope will get what is coming to them

To be honest, given the punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors in your post, I hope that you will not be teaching children anytime soon.

[cuiseogach]

You cannot necessarily base teachers performance on grades alone. I had a fantastic teacher for my JC Irish, really excellent guy and he managed to somehow get me from failing my pre to getting a C in higher level.

On the other hand, I had a fairly awful English teacher and my C in that subject was in spite of her more than anything else.


Anyways, my own suggestion...

I think we should redo the LC points system so that each LC subject has weighted points values depending on the college course you apply to.

As it stands someone can get A1 in music and it is worth 100 points, compared to someone who studies maths and gets a B1 (80 points?), and the Music one is considered more valuable for applications for engineering degrees.

This only encourages students to game the system and skip important but difficult courses in the name of points that are meaningless after the course offers go out.

Without a doubt the points system is flawed but what other system would work? They are actually talking about bringing in some crazy lottery draw system combined with the points system! Ruairí Quinn's big idea!

[Tig]

My reforms would be:

Irish optional from Junior Certificate
End State funding of private schools
End time during the school day being used for the preparation for personal religious events like communion/confirmation
Underperforming teachers not to simply be ignored - help to improve teaching, if no positive result then let them go
Extend school year considerably
Benchmark literacy and mathematical ability of all students at entry to second level education and again at the end - publish results so parents can assess the average progress students make at each school

[Toman13]

Without a doubt the points system is flawed but what other system would work? They are actually talking about bringing in some crazy lottery draw system combined with the points system! Ruairí Quinn's big idea!

Totally agree. Although grades are really the important bit. Points just get you in the door.

[Toman13]

My reforms would be:

Irish optional from Junior Certificate
End State funding of private schools
End time during the school day being used for the preparation for personal religious events like communion/confirmation
Underperforming teachers not to simply be ignored - help to improve teaching, if no positive result then let them go
Extend school year considerably
Benchmark literacy and mathematical ability of all students at entry to second level education and again at the end - publish results so parents can assess the average progress students make at each school

Absolute NO. It's ridiculous to have it optional, when it's listed in our constitution as the "national language". And just because we had a cr*p way of teaching it doesn't mean that it should be scrapped. And I'm bad at Irish, so I'm qualified to talk. Also, if it's a faith school, there is nothing you can do about the second underlined issue.

[Dylan2010]

cut loose most schools from direct state control and introduce a voucher system where every kid has €3/5K deposited to an educational account. Free up the carriculum and exam systems so people can choose the system they want for their kids.

[Dan_Murphy]

Without a doubt the points system is flawed but what other system would work? They are actually talking about bringing in some crazy lottery draw system combined with the points system! Ruairí Quinn's big idea!

Well, and I am really making this up as I go so the figures might be crazy...

Lets say all courses in college could be divided into three groups: Technical, Arts and Business, would would adjust the max points people can get based on the course applied for.

	Technical	Arts	Business
Maths	150	75	100
English	50	125	75
Biology	125	75	50
Accouting	75	50	150
LCVP	100	100	100

And so on, that way people students can work on the subjects that are useful for the course, and not the subjects that reward points. (Or at the very least, work on the subjects that are useful for the course that give the most points.)

It might be a bit more convoluted than I am making out, but I think it would be slightly more fairer than what we have now. We need to reverse this trend of people abandoning maths at higher level.

As I said, I haven't really given this a whole load of thought so would be most interested to hear others opinions on it, especially since I am very very biased in favour of maths and technical subjects.

[Tig]

Absolute NO. It's ridiculous to have it optional, when it's listed in our constitution as the "national language". And just because we had a cr*p way of teaching it doesn't mean that it should be scrapped. And I'm bad at Irish, so I'm qualified to talk. Also, if it's a faith school, there is nothing you can do about the second underlined issue.

They'll have learnt it for 11 years by then - nothing unreasonable about allowing them the choice as to whether to take it for the final years of school. I couldn't care less about the Constitution really, that's not the way to set education policy imo.

On the second issue, given that the State pays for education services I imagine there would a way around it.

[Keith-M]

Teaching
Extend the school term to match other countries.
Introduce performance appraisals for all teachers, linked to any salary increases/decreases.
Introduce a sick leave policy where doctors' certs need to be produced on the second day.
Stewarding, marking of exams, parent teacher meetings etc. to be included as a normal work activity and not be treated as overtime activity.
Any teacher found to be doing "grinds" and not paying tax to be instantly dismissed.

Schools.
Transfer of control of schools from the (in some cases nominal) religious orders to the state. No more than 20% of the schools to remain outside direct state control.
Every child in the state to have access to a place in the state school system.

Curriculum
Every child in primary education to learn a freign lanuage for (at least) the final two years of the primary cycle.
Irish history, Irish language and elements of the old civics course that relate to the state, to be combined into an "Irish studies" course which is mandatory for all second level pupils.
History to now focus on international events.
Latin to be replaced by Chinese.

University places not only to be decided by Leaving Certs results alone, but by an entrance interview as well.
Anyone droppping out of before completing their course to pay back all course fees, but transfers to other subjects allowed after successfully completing the first year.

[Deadlock]

Teaching
Extend the school term to match other countries.
Introduce performance appraisals for all teachers, linked to any salary increases/decreases.
Introduce a sick leave policy where doctors' certs need to be produced on the second day.
Stewarding, marking of exams, parent teacher meetings etc. to be included as a normal work activity and not be treated as overtime activity.
Any teacher found to be doing "grinds" and not paying tax to be instantly dismissed.

Schools.
Transfer of control of schools from the (in some cases nominal) religious orders to the state. No more than 20% of the schools to remain outside direct state control.
Every child in the state to have access to a place in the state school system.

Curriculum
Every child in primary education to learn a freign lanuage for (at least) the final two years of the primary cycle.
Irish history, Irish language and elements of the old civics course that relate to the state, to be combined into an "Irish studies" course which is mandatory for all second level pupils.
History to now focus on international events.
Latin to be replaced by Chinese.

University places not only to be decided by Leaving Certs results alone, but by an entrance interview as well.
Anyone droppping out of before completing their course to pay back all course fees, but transfers to other subjects allowed after successfully completing the first year.

I'd add

* Extension of the school day, as common on the continent. School (and University) terms to follow suit.
* Completion of the Leaving Certificate to be made mandatory for every pupil entering the system. Far too many people leave school with no qualifications at all and are hostages to fortune.
* Amalgamation of schools and school districts to afford maximum subject availability for students.

I would also argue the History curriculum focusses far too much on events since the Famine, and needs a refocus to necessarily include, say the other 5000 years of history in Ireland and it's links to Europe and the World.