It comes as no surprise to this blogger that our illustrious education minister, one Caitriona Ruane, has once again come under fire this week. Grammar schools have struck another blow against her policy of abolishing academic selection and this morning I hear that primary school headmasters have joined in the criticism and accused the under-fire education minister of reneging on a promise to level out the funding gap between primary and secondary schools.
I was pleased to see that my former school was among the 32 post-primary schools (out of the 229 in the country) that have so far committed to continuing with academic selection via an entrance exam. Lumen Christi has already indicated it will set its own entrance exam and yesterday the Association for Quality Education announced that...
This story was on 5 Live yesterday evening. According to the media, Poole Borough Council used "laws to track criminals and terrorists" (the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) to determine whether they were lying about living in a school catchment area.
So what powers were these? Phone tapping? CCTV cameras pointed at the house 24/7? SWAT teams on standby?
No. They sent a man to check if the family left the house they claimed they lived at each morning and returned there in the afternoon. The BBC did their best to sensationalise this as "spying" - despite listeners texting in telling them to stop trying to 'sex up' their stories. Others went one better, using attention grabbing headlines claiming that 'spies stalked' the family. If this is spying, the government have been 'spying'...
University of Ulster offers cash incentives for studying at Magee
I got really pissed off with Queen's University in my last year or two, specifically with the School of Computer Science (as was), despite the university being short-listed for Sunday Times University of the Year in my graduation year, and it really made me regret not setting my sights higher on my UCAS forms. If Northern Ireland's supposed top university is that bad it makes one wonder what the competition is like. Now we know.
The UU's Magee campus is so shite the university feels the need to bribe students into signing up for Computer Science courses. The question is: is it the university itself that prospective students are turning their noses up at, or is it simply the idea of living in Londonderry just that...
Donegal: northernmost of the Three Counties (red)
OK, maybe not, but following recent speculation about the transfer of Cavan to Northern Ireland, those who hear the word Ulster and think of the historic province, whose boundaries were set on the authority of Queen Elizabeth I way back when, may well have cause to be pleased.
Apparently the University of Ulster is considering an expansion over the border into Co. Donegal by way of a merger with the Letterkenny Institute of Technology.
£1.3 million is being spent on a study investigating options that might "improve links between the institute and the University of Ulster's Magee campus" in Londonderry, of which a merger is one. Further detail from the UU itself confirms that the funding comes as part of measures in the Republic's...
http://www.everythingulster.com/blogs/index.php/2008/02/21/reclamation_of_donegal_beginsDonegall: northernmost of the Three Counties (red)
OK, maybe not, but following recent speculation about the transfer of Cavan to Northern Ireland, those who hear the word Ulster and think of the historic province whose boundaries were set on the authority of Queen Elizabeth I way back when may well have cause to be pleased.
Apparently the University of Ulster is considering an expansion over the border into Co. Donegal by way of a merger with the Letterkenny Institute of Technology.
£1.3 million is being spent on a study investigating options that might "improve links between the institute and the University of Ulster's Magee campus" in Londonderry, of which a merger is one. Further detail...
Here's a pertinent little point I suspect might raise a few hackles, but that's what I'm here for, so let's go.What would President Barack Obama do about affirmative action programmes after he was elected?Try as I might, as I wade through the positivist verbiage that passes for political discourse in the US presidential election, I can't find a single hard statement by Obama on the issue.But in the past, he has said he supports affirmative action supporting the promotion of blacks in educational admissions, public employment and state contracting. Then again, he's also said that the black community need to take responsibility for their own fate, and that there is no black or white Americans, just Americans. So, the position is a little contradictory.But if he gets elected, the future of...
http://www.everythingulster.com/blogs/index.php/2008/01/23/calling_ruanes_bluffIt's a busy day on the Caitriona Ruane front today. I'd just like to issue a quick thank you to Jim Allister for confirming that I was right when I said that Ms Ruane was talking out her arse when she said she wanted to change the law to prevent Northern Ireland schools, shockingly, giving preference to children living in Northern Ireland because it "may" breach EU equality rules (and thanks also to Nevin for mentioning it in his comment on this Slugger post).
Jim Allister has contacted the European Commission who have confirmed that this is nonsense. Allister's blog contains the long, wordy response, but in short the child from the Republic would only have a right to equal treatment in terms of admission to...
http://www.everythingulster.com/blogs/index.php/2008/01/23/ruane_has_no_answers_on_post_primary_refMinister for Education Caitriona Ruane has refused to answer a list of questions submitted to her by the Assembly's education committee. These questions were agreed by the committee and included how much her plans would cost, what provision would be made to avoid selection by post code and what methods would be used to decide who got a place in over-subscribed schools.
Ms Ruane's Sinn Fein colleague Paul Butler defender her saying "I would like to see the committee playing a more constructive role and working with the Minister to get through this period."
Translation for those of you who don't speak Sinnerese "I would like to see the committee sitting back quietly, letting the Minister...
http://www.everythingulster.com/blogs/index.php/2007/12/07/emporer_ruane_missing_her_garmentsNow that's a disturbing thought, apologies to anyone who's eating as they read this. Anyway, Bob Wilson of the local Tories has criticised the response of unionist politicians and the media to Caitriona Ruane's non-announcement on the abolition of grammar schools.
Let us be unequivocal about this. To introduce a transfer procedure along the lines suggested by Ms Ruane would require secondary legislation – a Regulation or Statutory Rule. Such a Rule could be rejected by the Education Committee... 6 of whom are unionists.
Bob Wilson, NI...
http://www.everythingulster.com/blogs/index.php/2007/12/05/ruane_confirms_grammar_abolition_planMy favourite politician is making headlines again although, as Big Ulsterman points out, she hasn't really done anything except release a rather vague (and badly constructed) statement confirming her intention to end academic selection.
Long-time readers will know I have a major gripe with her sabotage of our education system. While the 11+ exam procedure might not be the best way to achieve it, academic selection works. Northern Ireland sends more children from "less well-off" backgrounds to university than anywhere else in the UK. Why? Because places in the top schools are awarded on the basis of merit, not money: something you'd expect a socialist to support, no?
Read more!...
In her continuing quest to destroy the educations of hundreds of thousands of children, Caitriona Ruane is to change the law so that Northern Ireland's schools can no longer give preference to Northern Ireland-resident children when it comes to allocating places.
She claims the existing law "may" breach EU equality rules. I'm fairly confident that's a downright lie (call me unparliamentary if you will, but there is no excuse for deliberately misleading the public). The EU equality rules deal with race, religion, sexual discrimination etc. In other words you can't discriminate against a person because of who they are. They do not prohibit member nations from providing services for those resident within their own borders.
Just another example of Sinn Fein not only abusing their position...
I was looking through the part-time prospectus for the new Belfast Metropolitan College when I noticed that GNVQs have been renamed again.
When I was doing my A-levels in 1999 Advanced GNVQs were being renamed to VCE (Vocational Certificate of Education) A-Levels to encourage people to equate them with the existing GCE (General Certificate of Education) A-levels used to set entrance requirements to universities and in job applications etc. In fact, while I studied A-Level computing, thanks to a policy decision by the school, fellow pupils in the year below me were studying a GNVQ in ICT. One or two years later that would be a VCE A-Level in ICT.
Whatever you call it though, it's still not the same qualification and those studying it knew this. I felt that they were being fed a...
I, like many others, see a lot of the problems in Northern Ireland today stemming from the segregation of society at various levels; none so damaging as at school level. As far back as 1968 Prime Minister Terrence O'Neill recognised that 'a major cause of division (in Northern Ireland) arises from segregation of education'.
But what if we had a chance to prevent this? What if there was no need for a 'Council for Integrated Education' because, shock horror, people actually went to school with those from other religions. What if religion was taught by churches instead of schools? I'm not a big fan of the way the French run their country, but the secular nature of their education system is one thing I admire.
What if, in the early years of Northern Ireland's existence, someone had the...
http://www.everythingulster.com/blogs/index.php/everythingulster/2007/03/03/employers_urged_to_look_past_classNot social class, degree class. A recent report has shown that men are being passed over for well-paying jobs because they're taking tougher courses at university than women. One-third of graduate jobs being advertised to graduates of any discipline with a 2:1 or better degree, which gives an undue advantage to people studying softer degrees like Psychology and English. As it turns out, this disproportionately disadvantages men, who are still opting for more rigorous degrees like Physics or Engineering.
=> Read...
http://www.everythingulster.com/blogs/index.php/everythingulster/2007/02/18/whens_a_democracy_not_a_democracy Ah this ever-so-democratic Labour government, which has gone to war in the interests (in part at least) of “spreading democracy” to the middle-east. While I’ve never been particularly pro-war or anti-war, I do find the way the government have been acting at home betrays a large dose of hypocrisy.
While they’re on this crusade in the name of democracy, let’s have a look at what their unelected (should I say unelectable?) Peter Hain has been doing in our own little corner of the United Kingdom.
We have:
the abolition of our grammar schools and moves to increase the number of private schools, despite a government-sponsored referendum, or...
Sometimes the best ideas are the simple ones. Like non-denominational integrated schooling in the North.In the quarter century since Lagan College first opened its doors, thousands of children have had the opportunity to be educated alongside those from the other community, eliminating the likelihood of those children becoming the latest generation of bigots.In a climate where living arrangements have become dangerously polarised into a patchwork of single community ghettos, school and the workplace have become almost the only environments in which both communities can encounter each other in the province.This morning, it has emerged that the Catholic Council for Maintained Schools, which oversees the running of Catholic schooling in the North, is set to shut at least 50 primary schools...
The Conservatives today accused Peter Hain's NIO of acting "like an arrogant colonial despot" over the Education Reform Order which will see grammar schools in Northern Ireland abolished. (For background, Kenneth Bloomfield summarises quite well in the Telegraph).
Referring to the results of the household survey conducted by DENI to determine the attitudes of the public towards education reform, the Conservatives branded the move 'undemocratic' as well as "bad for education". The household survey conducted for the Department of Education while Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness was in charge was blatantly desinged in such a way as to give DENI the answer they wanted, but the results of the survey were ignored once it was discovered the public wouldn't play along.
Despite the efforts and...
That's apparently what thousands of students examinations are worth. A month ago lecturers rejected 12.6% over 2 years in pay increases and today accepted a 13.1% over 3 years deal.
Thanks for that....
I'm disgusted to learn that the government plan to continue ignoring the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland, who backed retention of grammar schools in various polls. It seems that Maria Eagle, direct rule education minister, will push the Education Order through Westminster before the executive is reestablished, abolishing both academic selection and grammar schools.
Maria Eagle, who has taken over from Angela Smith (another waste of space) said "It will be a matter for the Assembly on recall to determine how it wishes to engage with these matters," - failing to mention that by the time the executive is restored, her education order will already have been rushed through Parliament and that any executive elected will not have the power to undo that. No, they'll just be...