Free education is a joke in post-boom nation of damp pre-fabs

What kind of low-tax, high-squander society would fail to invest in its children's education, asks Gene Kerrigan

Sunday August 31 2008

You shell out €400 or so for the schoolbooks. And about the same for the uniforms. Stiff, but not as bad as it might be, because some of the books will carry over into next year, and the uniform too. But if you've got a couple of kids going to secondary, and maybe a younger one looking forward to First Communion or Confirmation next year, you're looking at big bucks.

And by the time you've kicked in this voluntary contribution and that supplementary fee (for photocopying, sticky tape and staples), the words "free education" have become a very unfunny joke.

Meanwhile, the snob generals of academia demand the return of third-level fees -- inevitably casting aside some pupils. Rather than campaign aggressively for proper funding and equitable access, they want fees, exclusionary means tests.

They run third level on business principles, as enterprises disconnected from the primary and secondary levels. For some reason our universities must aspire to be "world class" institutions, whatever that might be, rather than merely serve the society that funds them. And the first step to such eminence is, of course, CEO-level salaries for the top dogs.

There's no joined-up thinking that links primary with secondary, then with third level. Fiefdoms and careerism are rampant. League tables help turn education into a commodity.

Back in the real world, we wonder why schoolbooks are so expensive, given that the size of the market is known and sales are certain. Couldn't the Department set up a committee to

commission textbooks and ensure quality and relevance, then publish and print the required books and sell them at cost?

Well, that wouldn't be good for competition, would it? That would be a monopoly, and monopolies are bad. Bad for choice, bad for the book business.

But couldn't the Department at least harness the immense purchasing power of the schools to ...

No, that's communism.

As the kids settle into class, the claim that a "high proportion of existing schools are in poor condition" is not a media allegation, it's an admission from the Department of Education.

So, the kids carry their staggeringly heavy schoolbags back to their poor school conditions. Last year, the government spent €35.5m renting prefab classrooms -- €35m down the drain, and not a single thin wall of even one of those rented prefabs can we call our own.

And tens of millions in rent will continue to be poured down the drain until we build proper schools or hell freezes over, take your pick.

There are, of course, lots of prefabs that the Government bought outright -- €83.5m was spent purchasing prefabs between 2000 and 2006. And you'll even find some that aren't yet damp-ridden or vermin infested.

There are, of course, proper schoolrooms, with real walls. And only some of the walls are painted breeze-blocks, no plaster, no insulation. Sometimes the rooms are ceiling-less. The inside of the corrugated metal roof gives the kids something to stare at when they're daydreaming of having a PE hall.

No PE facilities, no libraries, no spare room within which non-routine activities can be organised. Just the bare school, and the expensive schoolbooks.

With a bit of luck, Tesco will continue its voucher scheme, so primary schools can continue to hope for computers. Of course, parents have to spend something like €200m before the school gets enough vouchers for a mouse mat. What the hell, in the absence of the political will to equip the schools for the computer age, parents shopping at Tesco will have to fill the gap as best they can.

In secondary, about 100,000 junior cycle kids are heading back to classes of over 25. And another 25,000 are in classes of over 30. Teachers trying to teach perhaps 28 pupils in an ill-equipped room can hardly be expected to identify and respond to individual problems and strengths.

It doesn't matter that in relation to GDP per capita we're 29th of 30 OECD countries in spending on second-level education. Politicians announce gross sums, and gross increases, without reference to the historically low starting base. And they greet with thunderous fury any claim that they've been trying to get education on the cheap.

Historically, having sponged off the Catholic Church, and now ideologically committed to subsidising fee-paying schools, the notion of taking responsibility to raise taxes for and organise a State-funded, functioning system of education is alien to our politicians.

The former Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, never stood up to the then Minister for Finance and demanded the money to do the job. Batt O'Keeffe, seems even weaker.

Through a dozen years of economic boom, we'd hardly put up with our kids being schooled in prefabs and overcrowded classes, would we?

Not in a country awash with luxury shops, thousands of vacant holiday homes, with the airports crowded with shoppers heading off to New York for the weekend -- we wouldn't take our tax cuts and leave the ramshackle schools, overcrowded and under-staffed. Would we?

We wouldn't leave ourselves burdened with spending tens of millions every year renting temporary school accommodation, and spending tens of millions more on cheaply built buildings that are more expensive to maintain, would we?

Smart people like we are, after such a boom we wouldn't end up still depending on Tesco shoppers to provide basic computer facilities to primary pupils. We wouldn't have our kids going door to door, asking for support for "sponsored walks" around the housing estate, to raise money to keep the school going.

After all, what kind of low-tax, high-squander economy would be so foolish? What kind of society would get so drunk on its own debt-based prosperity as to handicap our children in such ways? Not smart folks like we are.

'Brian Cowen's Government has the right approach'

The Taoiseach is putting us in a position to reap the benefits when the economy recovers, says Bertie Ahern

By Bertie Ahern. excerpts.

Sunday August 24 2008

The most important issues for Government facing an economic downturn is to ensure that the overall gains our economy has made over the past two decades are safeguarded; that our economy is placed in a position to continue growing into the next decade; and that the pain felt by a person losing a job is minimised as far as possible...................

In almost all countries, the real effect of these economic difficulties has been increased unemployment. Ireland's unemployment rate has increased to just over five per cent of the labour force. I know for a fact that Taoiseach Brian Cowen and his Government are committed to minimising the negative effects of unemployment on individuals and society through the investment of taxpayers' money in retraining programmes under FAS, education programmes in the VECs, and committing substantial levels of social-welfare support to those who find themselves in difficult circumstances.

I know that it is of little comfort to those who are unemployed but it is important to state that our national unemployment rate is less than the EU average of seven per cent, and the Government is actively working to safeguard our economy and its jobs.....................

The projected recovery of our economic growth to around 3.75 to four per cent per annum over the medium term is contingent upon doing the right things now so as to benefit from the global economic recovery when this emerges. In other words, we must maintain and indeed improve our competitiveness.I am confident that Brian Cowen's Government is on track to achieve this and has already implemented a number of measures in this regard.For instance, it is implementing prudent fiscal policies, including the recently announced savings and efficiencies. These will allow us to maintain a relatively low tax burden and help to restore confidence in our economy.

This increased prudence in administrative expenditure is being counterbalanced by the need for Government to support economic demand when private-sector demand is falling. The Government is correct to prioritise exchequer investment in the National Development Plan, which will improve our productive capacity.

A good example of this is the national road network, which will make road transport more efficient through time savings in personal commuting and the transport of goods.

The road network is only one area of significant capital investment. In addition there is currently record investment in public transport, housing, electricity infrastructure, research and development, among other areas.

This capital investment is being complemented by the Government's current expenditure on social services.We now have a record level of gardai, lower pupil-teacher ratios, and real increases across all social-welfare rates. Our society as a whole has worked hard to achieve these significant improvements. It would be very irresponsible of any Government to put them at risk through ill-thought-out and panicked responses.

Taoiseach Cowen will not fall into this trap. His Government has adopted a measured, proportionate and sensible response to what is an international downturn. He is balancing fiscal restraint to ensure domestic recovery with the need to protect the vulnerable. I believe this is the right thing to do as it will place us in a stronger position to maximise the benefits to Ireland of the global economic recovery.

- Bertie Ahern

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Railway makes more sense than M3

Madam, - The recent debate about the privatisation of archaeology in Ireland (Letters, August 4th) is important to future projects, but largely moot to the M3, as the excavations there are now complete.

We now face only two major related issues at the Hill of Tara:

1. Does it now make economic sense to delay the reopening of the Dublin-Kells railway, but spend over €1 billion on the M3 toll road? The M3 is a waste of taxpayers' money, as Frank McDonald indicated last May, and a new cost-benefit analysis is needed now, to avoid economic ruin.

Five motorways - the M1, M2, M3, M4 and Outer Orbital Route - are not needed in the small county of Meath. The M3 will pass within five kilometres of the M2, which is non-tolled. Most of the M3 toll revenue will go to a multinational anyway. The economic justification for the M3 has evaporated in the 10 years since it was proposed.

The National Development Plan, along with the M3, was based on an assumption of over 4 per cent annual growth, which is now clearly aspirational. Exchequer revenues from the property sector, which amounted to 17 per cent of 2006 revenues, are set to plummet, long-term. Massively increased fuel costs and severe EU penalties for carbon emissions were not factored into the price.

The M3 should be cancelled, as it is still two years from completion. The Dublin-Kells railway should be immediately redeveloped instead, as it would take cars and drivers off the roads, increasing safety and reducing emissions. The taxpayer would benefit more if the M3 pathway through Tara was landscaped into a heritage trail, with the razed national monuments reconstructed.

2. Should Minister for the Environment John Gormley's proposal to make Tara a World Heritage site be approved by Unesco, if the motorway is completed through Tara? The Hill of Tara is clearly worthy of World Heritage status, but the M3 ruins the integrity of the site as a whole.

Unesco granted Stonehenge World Heritage status in 1986. One of the central planks of the current management plan for Stonehenge (adopted in 1998) is the re-routing of the A303 away from the stones and the closure of the A344, which runs beside the monument. This year the UK reneged on this plan, claiming it would cost a billion pounds, and Unesco is threatening sanctions. Unesco should state its position on Tara now, instead of turning a blind eye and threatening sanctions in the future. - Yours, etc,

VINCENT SALAFIA,

TaraWatch,

Dublin 1.