If there's nothing else you can say about the Minister for Education, Norma Foley. When we look back at 2024, it's likely she will feature heavily. Whether it was her crisis opportunity during the general election campaign or her 9 million Euro phone pouches, in this episode, join me as I look back on a year where the Department of Education were more interested in smartphones than teacher shortages and where all of the problems in the education system seemed to be defended by throwing free school books and free school lunches at parents. So without further ado, let's review the year from January to June.

Hello hello, you're very welcome to if I Were the Minister for education from anshah.net a regular podcast where I delve into the world of primary education and let you know what I would do if I were the Minister for Education.

This is Simon Lewis.

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Join me as I look back on a year where the Department of Education were more interested in smartphones than teacher shortages, and where all of the problems in the education system seem to be defended by throwing free school books and free school lunches at parents.

So without further ado, let's review the year from January to June in this part and later on in the week I'll be moving on to the rest of the year.

Ready to go?

For those of you who hear my South Dublin accent, run it raining through this podcast.

Armed with the big Lie theory as that is repeats something often enough and it becomes true, I have to drive by protests in my town and watch school children standing in the cold as their parents said they felt like strangers in their own classrooms.

Norma Foley's attentions weren't focused on that, of course, which was more the pity.

As far as she was concerned, the biggest problem in the education system was those pesky schools forcing parents to buy smartphones for their children.

One thing that didn't seem to be a problem were the vast swathes of money being gifted to the Catholic Church for divesting or reconfiguring as it's known now, their schools to a different patron body.

And it turns out that per school the government were going to pay between €5,000 and €8,000 a year for each school that was reconfigured.

Essentially, if the government reached their target of 400 multi denominational schools, it would be over two and a half million euro per year given and gifted to the Catholic Church.

And not forgetting that the state also fund all the bills of those schools, including all of the maintenance and all of the building remains in the ownership of the church after the lease had run out.

It was a sweet deal.

And I've no idea why the church aren't actually chopping, chomping at the bit to reconfigure as many of their schools as possible.

And I guess given the given free solar panels which were also given gifted to them, may have made them think that there's more money to be made by staying put.

And as I explored this in January, and despite my best efforts, the media weren't interested in that.

They were really still interested in schools banning mobile phones.

And as we'll see, that became a theme throughout the year.

Meanwhile, in January, the teacher shortage crisis rumbled into its 10th year, with schools in major cities completely unable to fill temporary positions.

And while I still think people are missing many of the points as to why we have this teacher crisis, the minister remained in denial that there was a problem at all.

And yes, that's going to be another theme as we go through the year.

We start the year on a depressing tone.

And for me, I found a lot of its power was in how it was able to analyze data.

And I found myself thinking a lot about the spreadsheets that the Department of Education actually produces, and they produce quite a few of them.

So I decided that I'd use ChatGPT, in the absence of having a statistics degree, to analyze those, the data that they put out behind any, anything to do with special education, specifically the special education allocations.

And I spent a lot of February analyzing that.

And not only did I find unsurprising evidence that the government press releases weren't exactly telling the truth, more worryingly, the entire set allocation system is completely based upon junk data.

There is absolutely no rhyme and no reason for the set allocations that your school receives.

And looking at the country on a county by county analysis of resources.

Schools in Offaly were receiving an average over 10% more resources than they should have, and schools in County Ross Common, not so far away, were receiving almost 10% less, and every county in between.

There was no rhyme and reason.

And if you were in a developing school, you were receiving a whopping discrepancy of 43% fewer hours than you should have been as well.

And sadly, though, when the set allocations were accidentally released at 11 o'clock at night on a Friday of the new Irish bank holiday, by Saturday morning principals were screwing each other over in the annual event, which is colloquially known as the cluster Games.

However, not only was I getting disillusioned with my principal colleagues on the fact that they were quite happy to spend their Friday night of bank holiday essentially screwing each other over, the government decided to turn the screw further by removing the criteria of complex needs from those set allocations.

And I'll talk more about that in a couple of months in this review.

In the meantime, after a Freedom of Information request, I found the state had gifted over 500 million euro, half a billion euro, to the Catholic Church and other private bodies on capital building projects.

From when, do you think, how long would you think that amount of gifting took place?

However, again, the media weren't interested in that.

They were more interested in the fact that 25% of 6 year olds own smartphones.

I get that.

I get that is a fairly, fairly awful thing.

But of course, that's school's faults.

Irish exemptions were being given out far too easy, which of course is school's faults.

And schools closing for the polling day for the referendum, which didn't pass, was also school's faults.

If you read the media in February, do you know what?

There's some things, you know, even ChatGPT can't process.

Let's move on to March.

In March, I learned a new word, quantum, which according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is the smallest amount or unit of something, especially energy.

That term, quantum, was used three times in one of the most bizarre statements I've ever experienced in my career from the Irish Primary Principles Network, who decided to turn on their own members when they criticized the Department of Education's decision to cut the complex needs criteria from set allocations.

Rather than actually support their members who thought this was shocking, they decided to defend the Department of Education's decision to cut the complex needs criteria.

And to quote their statement, it is important to be clear that that children with complex need have not been excluded from the allocation of hours that schools received.

And they went on to explain that given that the revised allocations model is now underpinned by more accurate data provided by schools, it is hoped that the quantum of hours allocated to schools will better enable children with additional and complex needs to achieve and thrive in their mainstream settings.

I wonder if ChatGPT wrote that quantum so baffling they used it three times in their statement.

It's a word that could equally define the IPPN's representation of their own members, in this case the smallest unit of energy March also saw Josepha Madigan stepping down as the Minister for Special Education.

Unfortunately for her legacy will be best remembered not for anything to do with it will be to do with special education, but for her many misspeakings, as she called it herself, including calling children without additional needs as normal children.

I could go on, but I don't think it's worth spending much more than a quantum on her legacy April despite the hype around Christmas, Easter is actually the most important holiday in the Christian calendar which celebrates the birth of their Lord Jesus Christ.

However, in April, a study of over 4,000 teachers by a Catholic organization in the Grace Project revealed that over half of teachers working in Catholic schools who promised that they would uphold the ethos in their interview under the age of 50 don't believe in God.

And worse again, Catholic marriages are at their lowest point at under 35% of marriages.

If Jesus hadn't escaped his grave, he would be rolling in it.

And if saying that sounds disrespectful, of course it is.

But no more disrespectful than the way teachers are expected to be missionaries for the Catholic Church in 90% of primary schools.

As much as its importance in the school year has diminished over the last decade or so, it's still one of the highlights of a number of teachers school years.

And I know it seems that it's the same people every year going up and complaining, why is there nobody else showing up to this thing?

It's a question I often tell them to ask themselves rather than giving out, about why people like me and like many others don't get involved in the into the answer is we don't feel welcome in the club and there's there's some work to be done.

But let's move away from my rant and get back to my ponderings on April about why the Inco Congress, with all the motions and many of them the same every year, why was it that religion in education was the one that grabbed the headlines?

And why was it that the motion that went through certainly wasn't the motion that was the over overall biggest demand for more people in the country, despite huge work around the country for a very strong motion on religion, the INTO standing Motions committee decided they'd pick the very weak motion from Ross Common of all places, rather than the other counties in Ireland who had much stronger motions.

But they said that they wanted, for whatever reason, Ross Common decided that they would put that a survey and that would be what we need.

This is the big deal about religion in education.

We need a survey and we need to demand the end of the religious certificate in Catholic education.

The questions that Ross Common and therefore the Standing Orders committee decided, rather than the much stronger motion that people had put forward was we would ask teachers two questions.

Should faith formation education take place in primary schools?

And should primary school education in Ireland have secular or religious patrons?

Now, I have less of a problem with the first question than I do with the second question.

And to be honest, at the time I didn't really comment on it because I was just a bit.

I was really miffed, to be honest with you, with those two questions.

And number one, they lack absolute nuance.

This is a highly complex area.

People talk to me about how simplistic my view is of separating church and state.

But to add to have a survey asking just those two questions is shocking and the second question is ridiculous.

Like who said it's a choice between secular or religious patrons?

What about patrons in general?

And so on.

Sorry, I'm going back into a round.

They're not even going to bother asking all of their members.

And thinking about the future for teachers who might want to be treated with the slightest level of respect for their private religious beliefs, it's going to need a miracle bigger than any messiah even Jesus could give.

And it also shows the contempt Maybe I think that the INTO have for their members that don't go with the flow and accept, I think, and I suppose I'm going again to a third round in April.

I think the INTO are probably quite happy with the patronage system.

They seem to be.

Their question even would suggest that, that they would like to see the continuation of patron bodies.

You know, would.

Would we rather have secular religious patrons?

We.

They don't ask the question of should we have patrons at all.

I think privately, I don't think they think this is all a big deal and this is just a storm in a teacup.

And I do remember actually when I got a call from the INTO after I was.

After I was racially abused online when people cared about that kind of thing, I had a call from a member, from a person who was very high level in the into and I congratulated them at the time because at the time they had decided to do so.

An act of rebellion, I would say, which was to raise the pride flag in schools, even ones with religious ethos.

And I congratulated them at the time because the person involved was heavily involved in that.

And when I congratulated them, I thought it was interesting.

They said, look, you know, it was an easy, it was an easy victory.

We measured the temperature really of the time and it was like nobody really minded.

I noticed this year there was very little publication of raising the pride flag in schools.

I don't know if they raised the pride flag at all in any of the primary schools because now it isn't as easy as it was.

And it was very notable that I didn't see the pride flag being proudly waived this year in June by the into.

Anyhow, as I said, easy victories is where they're at.

And I think the INTO are just going to wait until other people do all the work and they'll sweep in and say, look what we've been doing anyway.

However, one chink of bright light was that 13 years after the forum of patronage and pluralism, the first ever Catholic school divested to educate together.

Now, you may not have heard that correctly.

13 years later.

Yes, years after the forum of patronage and pluralism, I think I might have found a better definition for the word quantum.

Let's move to May.

May was all about the money and it's all about the dum dum decisions made by the Department of Education, who decided in the midst of rumors of a general election that they would cut funding to the school book grant, reducing it by 17%.

The ancillary grant and to the summer program, which is now half of what it was two years before.

And as the Minister for Education continued her two chief crusades.

And I found that really interesting that I was looking at the same time when I was looking at this.

I also looked for petitions from the same parents or any parents protesting the cuts to the school book grants, the ancillary grants and the summer program.

But funny enough, I couldn't find a single petition from those working parents for those cuts to basic services to education.

Let's move to the end of the school year.

It's June, and as the world seemed to be falling apart with war, you probably may have wondered if I was going to mention any of the terrible conflicts happening around the world.

Whether that was Iran, Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, the Russia war in Ukraine or Israel in Gaza.

And given my own background, and given that President Michael D.

Higgins claimed there was no anti Semitism in Ireland, and given that the day before I had just received a torrent of images featuring stereotypical beasts with large hooked noses and people telling me to get out of Ireland and go and kill some Palestinian children, I felt that despite not feeling very safe doing, but also realizing how stupid that sounds when there are so many Palestinians out there and who are feeling much, much less safe than my stupid feelings.

As someone who was brought up in the Jewish faith, I was always taught the bad things happen when good people do nothing.

And it was the only way.

And I have spent the last number of years trying to understand how the Israelites that I grew up with, one under Yitzhak Rabin, could move from a place where there was relative peace and a plan for a solution, possibly a two state solution, to one where the Israeli government has essentially lost any form of humanity.

I tried my best to articulate my thoughts on the situation in Gaza and try to explain why.

Ultimately, I believe that the reason for the rise in antisemitism that I have faced in Ireland in the last number of months is a direct result of the Israeli government justifying their murder of innocent people in my name.

And while the majority of Irish people are able to differentiate between Judaism and Zionism or even being Israeli at all, I'm not foolish enough like Michael D.

Higgins to believe that antisemitism doesn't exist.

It's why I was very uneasy about Michael D.

Higgins saying that.

And while I absolutely agree with him that criticisms of Israel are not anti Semitic, to say that Irish people are not anti Semitic is highly problematic, especially working in the education system, which I have argued for so many years, is covertly racist.

In the same way, I don't believe Irish people are generally xenophobic, despite the widespread protests outside those accommodation centers for migrants that I spoke about in January.

Or in the same way I don't believe that Irish people are generally homophobic.

Despite the protests in the libraries, I acknowledge there is a growth in xenophobia, homophobia, racism, and anti Semitism and Islamophobia.

They are all happening before our very eyes.

And to say that none of it is happening is deeply dangerous.

And this in an education setting where discrimination, blatant discrimination happens and legally discrimination happens every single day, whether it's single sex schools who discriminate by design on gender, whereas 96% of schools discriminate on a daily basis on the foundation of religion.

It's just to say things like that is dangerous.

And I suppose in the end of my article that I wrote about, and it was the first article I wrote about Israel and maybe I should have written it earlier.

I, I guess I was probably a little bit reluctant to write anything given my background and given that I'm one of the only people in the system from minority background.

And I suppose there are much, much more thoughtful and intelligent people out there.

In fact, I'm not a thoughtful, intelligent person on the, and I don't know very much about, about the intricacies and the complexities of the situations.

No more so than anybody else might be, but I am, I guess I also, at a human level, am disgusted by the atrocities that are happening in Gaza and it needs to stop.

So at the end of the article I listed much more thoughtful and intelligent articles and lessons that teachers could possibly use if the subject of Israel and Gaza or war in general came up.

Which kind of leads me to an unrelated issue that I explored near the end of the school year in June.

We have a wonderful array of thoughtful and intelligent teachers in Ireland who do talk about the education system in Ireland.

And I have to say, as the as time went on, I find it a little irksome that when that in the media, one of the only teachers that's features in the media has to express herself in a column called the Secret Teacher.

I think it's a very strange and weird thing that if the most prominent teacher in the media is not able to express herself without being in secret, that we have a massive problem in the education system that you cannot express yourself outside of the shadows.

And furthermore, when the media believe that the most influential figure in Irish education, as the Irish Times put it, is not even Irish.

And I'm not saying that in a nationalist sense, but isn't even an educationalist, it's actually a German statistician.

And we look at Singapore and Estonia to find out how to do education properly.

It can be easy to see how disillusionment can creep in when you work in the education system and you care about the education system and you see the small little nuances of the education system and you understand why the education system is the way it is.

And that as much as we can learn from Singapore and Estonia and we should learn from Singapore and Estonia and Finland and all and even our Germans, that our education system needs to be analyzed by people within it and the media need to stop looking.

They can look beyond, but they also look have to look within to find what's going on.

And we shouldn't have to do that in secret.

I guess things could be worse though in Ireland as we come to the end of our first six months.

And as I'm talking it through, I'm wondering, gosh, will something educational happen?

But I guess we might think about that in our next episode.

And I guess this might sound a bit depressing as an episode, but I guess it could be worse because I was reading in June that Louisiana teachers in America may be forced to teach the Ten Commandments as fact.

And I also saw there was a British head teacher, a principal who was in the media because he had to double job as a caretaker because there was not enough money to pay the bills.

And I just thought at least nothing like that could happen here.

I'll be back in a few days with the rest of the year and we'll see if anything educational happens, or if we're still going to be talking about things that aren't really educational at all.

Thanks so much for listening.

All the very best.

Bye.