Anseo.net - If I were the Minister for Education

We’re well used to cuts in primary school. Over the last decade or so, funding to primary schools has been chopped at every angle, sometimes very obviously and sometimes in a kind of invisible way. The Minor Works Grant is paid to schools for minor repair work that needs to be done. This has been the case for a long time. However, the Minor Works Grant is now issued to include the purchase and maintenance of ICT equipment.  In this episode I track the history of technology in education leading to

Joe McHugh used to be famous for being the Minister for the Gaeltacht despite not speaking Irish. He then became famous for re-learning the Irish language to fluency. Now he just can’t stop talking Irish, so it’s no surprise that the latest Action Plan for Education has an Irish name, Cumasú, which sounds a lot more interesting than its English translation.Thankfully, McHugh has kept his big promise of ensuring a slowdown to the initiatives in education as his Action Plan has only 280 of them! In

In some ways, everyone probably already knows that secondary schools are funded better than primary schools. However, to what extent is this true? In this episode, I explore the different areas where primary schools are left behind and I argue that in most cases there is no good reason. Before that, we look at any relevant news that hit the newspapers this week including: why we aren't teaching Irish badly, a new General Secretary and a senator's plans to get us all teaching yoga! Main episode

For our first episode I thought we'd start with a light, unemotive topic! In 2019, 97.5% of Irish primary schools have a religious patron body, with all but 3 of these schools under a Christian patronage. However, with Ireland already a diverse country, with 20% not falling under the Christian umbrella, and many people turning away from traditional Christian values, how is this still happening, and why? Even more strangely, publicly the Taoiseach has stated he would like complete church and state