Seán Crowe TD address on education
In the short time I have I want to focus primarily on the issues of special
needs, class sizes, and disadvantage.
When it comes to educating the
children of Ireland the British and Irish Government are failing Irish
children daily.
Particularly they are failing children from low-income
and deprived households and children with special needs.
Not a day goes
by where a parent with a special needs child doesn't contact a Sinn Fein
representative looking for help and support.
So why are the two
governments failing us all on the core education issues, especially when
education more than anyone other factor can transform a person's life,
giving them the ability not just to work and live with dignity but also to
become proactive and contribute positively to the society around them.
Maybe
the British and Irish governments don't want all the people educated. Why?
The answer could can be found in the words of Nelson Mandela who described
education as 'the most powerful weapon in the world.'
It is indeed a
weapon and the only weapon that I as an active Irish republican want to see,
readily available, to every man woman and child in this country.
How
is it that one of the richest states in the world lets children still go to
school hungry, where they are supposed to learn in drafty and overcrowded
classrooms
In Donegal, in one school, children with special needs
are being taught in a toilet because of overcrowding again in one of the
richest states in the world.
I support the concept of children
with special needs receiving their education in mainstream education but
teachers have to be skilled and trained to deal with children with learning
difficulties. Research points to a worrying trend in which children with
intellectual disabilities tend to drop out when they hit Secondary schools.
Educationalists
and parents want to see a seamless transfer of resources and support for
children with special needs from primary to second level.
This
state also has the unenviable record of having second largest class size in
Western Europe, with over 80% of the under nine age group, that's 170,000
children, in classes of greater than 20.
It is not difficult to
tackle these problems, it should start with a significant increase in school
funding, particularly for disadvantaged areas. We support the INTO proposal
that at least 10% of the overall education budget be devoted to tackling
disadvantage.
Expenditure on education lags far behind the rest
of Europe, with a recent development report placing Ireland 33rd of the top
50 nations.
Large classes hamper the teacher's ability to teach
as well as they would like to. No Primary school teacher should have to
stand at the top of a classroom teaching to 30 or more pupils.
Sinn
Fein strives for a Primary level pupil/teacher ratio of 15:1. Secondary
level spending in Ireland is dangerously close to the bottom of OECD
countries.
We also have a double standard of government, awash
with tax returns, wasting 52 million euro on e-voting, and yet they cannot
cough up the required 48 million euro to implement the McIver Report, which
is crucial in that it would provide appropriate resource, staffing,
structuring and development of the PLC sector which caters for 30,000
students, the bulk of who come from disadvantaged areas.
Sinn
Fein's policy outlined in our Educate that you may be free document
highlights our goal to educate all our children in well-resourced and funded
schools, schools that can cater for those with special needs, schools that
are adequately staffed, schools in which our children are not cold and
overcrowded.
The onus on Sinn Fein activists is to challenge
government failures at local level by getting involved in the fight for
proper schools in your community, and to present an alternative vision of
education as something liberating, radical and vital to students not just to
turn them into useful employees, but to make them valuable, and valued,
citizens.