When I appeared on Virgin Media television’s “Ireland’s Education Crisis,” I thought my phone would be buzzing from radio stations eager to find out why I thought the way we treat children with additional needs is Ireland’s 21st century scandal. I didn’t hear a single thing. It’s a theme I’m getting used to when I raise special education: silence.
In the same vein, in this episode, I try to get a look into the inner workings of the NCSE. As you’ll probably note from the length of this episode, I didn’t get very far.
However, as I was writing this episode, something happened. The NCSE announced new guidelines for allocating resources. Perhaps our next episode will spark some positivity?
Transcript
Welcome to access on done. The collapse of special education. Especial podcast from unsharp dot Nash. This is Simon Lewis, a teacher and principal for over 20 years in this series, I look back over the short history of how children with additional needs have slowly but surely been cast aside by the education system. I argue that much like the crimes of the Catholic church on children, where the scandal of the 20th century. That how the state is treating children with additional needs will be the scandal. Of the 21st. I have to confess. I'm a little disappointed. That this podcast has had the exact impact. That I thought it would. After I appeared on Arlen's education crisis on Virgin media television at the end of August, 2024. I expected my phone to be buzzing the next morning from the radio stations that usually call me about education topics. I didn't get a single message. Perhaps foolishly. Because I've even less reach than Virgin media. I thought I'd expand on the input I gave to the show for this series. I also hope by, by stretching out the episodes a couple of weeks apart. That I'd gather some content from people in the system. Even if it was anonymously. Unfortunately barring one statistic. I've had the same amount of information as I had when I started. This is the penultimate episode of access on done. Where I enter as far as I can into the walls of the N C S E. If I was to tell you that half of the teachers in a school quit their jobs within a couple of years. It would probably be national news. In fact, this is almost exactly what happened in 2022, in a small village in county Wexford called cushions town. In a nutshell, several teachers left their permanent jobs between 2019 and 2022. The board of management was dissolved and the school almost came to a point of being closed down as no solution appeared to be on the horizon. It was a fascinating story. It was no surprise that it made the national news and it might even make a good podcast in its own. Right. However, when 31 out of the 66 and a half CNOs left the NCSE between 2021 and 2023. Almost half of their entire front facing workforce. There wasn't a single word about it. I have the names of every CNO that left their position between those two years. How many of them are you going to hear from in person in this episode? The answer. As you may not be surprised to hear. We'll be non. This episode is going to be incredibly short in some ways, because in trying to build a picture of what's happening inside the walls of the NCSC. To be honest, I got almost nowhere. Unfortunately, as you'll see the walls of the NCSE are similar to the walls of silence. I faced since starting this series. It's very hard to penetrate them. We'll be left with more questions than answers as we come to the end of this episode. However, I hope that this and the last few episodes would have brought you to a place where you'll also maybe be moved to ask some questions yourself. As I'm writing this episode. I'm processing the contents of another TV show that aired at the end of October on RTE, it was called leathered. It was an investigation into the physical assault and abuses that took place on a daily basis in Irish schools until a corporal punishment was outlawed in Irish schools in the early 1980s. It was a very upsetting watch. Mainly focusing on the lives of men still affected by the treatment they received in school, even though some of them are well into their fifties and sixties and beyond. And some of them visibly breaking down as they recalled the daily punishments. Of being attacked by their teachers. It was difficult for me not to keep thinking about the correlation with this podcast series. There were over half a million children in the education system, the large majority of them witnessing some of the most vulnerable classmates being assaulted sometimes every single day. And yet only a small handful spoke up. The rest stayed. Absolutely silent. I'm also just after watching a film, small things like these, and it couldn't have been a better title to a film about one of the many scandals of the Catholic church in Ireland. And it was hard not to draw comparisons again. As I said, in a previous part of this series, I believe what we're doing to children with additional needs has many parallels. There's a perceived problem in that we have lots of children diagnosed with autism and we don't have enough resources to provide the children with what they need. So we've invented things which we seem to have no issue with calling units. And once the children are in these units. I mean, even the name would give it away that there's something wrong here. What a name to give to someone that's supposed to be caring a unit or you couldn't get a more uncaring name, but anyway, once these children are in these units, the perceived problem seems to be gone away according to the vast majority of people and much like Eileen, who's the main character, his wife in the film. Who innocently justifies her husband. Bill's discomfort by saying that the nuns feed the girls, clothed the girls and give them work. She also tells bill if you want to get on in this life. There are things you have to ignore. In fact, I would say she is the voice of general society. Kilian Murphy's character, bill, is most likely going to be punished for his small, but heroic action. And in the end, even though he did one small thing in the bigger picture, because of society's reluctance to speak. Bill will be the one to pay the price. I've spoken before about my own experience of standing up to leaders when I was in school. And perhaps as a teenager, one gets get out of jail free card because of the folly of youth, perhaps, however, I've seen how a community will stay quiet and it allows someone in power use their power to keep that power, whether that's terrible things or maybe just small things. So in a way as we enter the end of my look at the NCSE, we're kind of back to where we started with the compliance of silence. The cost of that silence is that we allow bad things to continue. The cost of not being silent is the risk of potential self cost. I know this a little bit though. I also know that the rewards for staying silence, aren't really important. You don't get to be the head of any organization by being outspoken. I think I've learned that for sure. You get there by not being outspoken and staying quiet. Anyway, let's enter the walls of the NCSC with one of my favorite statistics. And I've already mentioned it because I think the statistic alone summed up everything you needed to know about the NCSC and why you believe they failed children in Ireland. And here is that statistic. In 2003, the NCSE employed 72 CNOs. And 15 other staff. In 2019, they employed 64 and a half CNAs and 150 other staff. I wrote that as statistic in a tweet at the end of the school year in 2022. And I got a response. From someone called Ashlyn bacon. Now, if that name means nothing to you. Don't worry. It meant nothing to me either. However, if you look at the list of the 31 seniors that left the NCSE between 2021 and 2023, her name is on that list. And this was her reply to my tweet. I left the NCSE after 17 years where I worked tired of C as a CNO. I loved my job and I worked collaboratively with schools and parents. I left because of shocking management. I left because I could no longer stand over decisions made by management. I could write a book. It was mashed with several well-wishers who confirmed that she did work tirelessly as a CNO. It seems she was a good egg. I tried to reach out to her, but I never heard from her again. However, as much as I suspected that CNAs were being relegated in their duties to merely pushing paper around and not being allowed to make any decisions. I never heard anyone say anything out loud. And that was the closest I got to it. I can't tell you anything else about any of the other 31 CNAs on the list. Apart from one John Morin who left the CNO position to become a principal of a special school. If someone leaves a CNO position after 20 years to become a principal, I'd wager it wasn't because the opportunity never came up before then. However, I don't know the reason, so I can't make a point. There are however, one or two others on the list who stories I currently do know, but I can't share them right now. And maybe in the future, I will be able to do so. However privately they have backed up what Ashlyn bacon said in her tweet reply. One CNO pointed, meets the public accounts of the NCSC to look up their legal costs. So I've done that. I also sent in a freedom of information request regarding these legal fees, that the NCSE have incurred. But to be honest, I wouldn't be getting very excited. The figures are for sure interesting. But I don't know if there's anywhere to go with them. I decided I'd look at the legal fees incurred since 2003. And to be honest, I'm only going with this thread because of the anonymous tip-off and I'm not exactly sure what legal fees could be incurred by the NCSC except for employment issues. Maybe WRC cases taken from parents. Maybe getting legal advice. Uh, around the new Brunswick model or so, or maybe the Aon, but it is possible. Uh, the NTSA to get legal advice and pay for that. On these other issues. However, I will say their legal fees are actually quite interesting. The first thing I noticed. Well, it's from 2003, all the way to 2006, the NCSE incurred legal fees of 15 1 5 15 Euro. In total, in those four years. In 2007, they went up to 600 and five-year-old which for anyone who's getting legal advice is not much. And then in 2008, it did go up significantly. Up to 12,138. I don't know why that is. If there's no detail of it. From 2009 to 2011, they were back down to an average of about a thousand Juro. Um, a year, which seems about right. 2012 went up to 2000 before going back to 1000, again from 2013, 2016. So. Um, freely from 2003 to 2016. Uh, an average of less than a thousand Euro a year, but then from 2017 to 2019, for whatever reason, legal fees jumped to over 10,000 Euro a year. And then all of a sudden in 2020. Legal fees hit 102,000. Gero. And in 2021, they jumped to 181,000 Gero 2022 was 185,000 Euro. And we haven't received the 2003 23 report. But with all the legal challenges to the AOM process, I look forward to seeing them. So, I mean, you can see there from nothing, almost nothing to nearly 200 ties and zero a year. Something is going on where there's a lot of legal action being taken, or a lot of legal advice, certainly a lot of legal fees. And in order to figure. Out how much money was spent on legal fees on staffing issues. I made my guess, that this would have been expenses that say for the work relations commission or the WRC as it's known and knowing how specific one has to be with freedom of information requests. I knew I had to ask specifically for this, so maybe there's other legal fees around staffing, but I just don't know how to ask for them. So I only was able to get three years of data from the freedom of information request, but the figures were kind of interesting. Nonetheless. I'm just quoting the latter. I received. Outlined below is a spend on fees by the NCSC directly related to WRC cases. 20 23, 40 6,162 Euro 34 cent. Um, 20 22, 30 8,010 Euro, 40 cent and 20 to 21 only 3000 281 50. I also asked, uh, by parents taking the NCSE to the WRC. And since 2014, the total legal costs were less than 15 times. And so it doesn't seem to be parents that are causing the huge legal fees. I mean, again, it's very hard to know. I also asked them about resignations of CNOs. He knows because I felt that was important for correlation. And again, I should have been more specific because the figures I was saying don't really match the 31 people that left between 2021 and 2023. I know some people retired and I know one that died. However, just taking resignations into account between 2021 and 2023, there were more resignations in those two years. Than in the first six years of the 2010s combined. And again, I don't know what that tells us. It's just interesting to see their figures and we can draw whatever conclusions we must from them. I'm not sure what conclusions I could draw. The account of the NTSC from 2003 to 2022 are interesting in many ways, it's interesting to see the eye watering amounts, which have come into the budget over the years because wages have remained relatively stable. It's fascinating to see how the total budget is spent. Front-facing expenses remained largely stable, but other expenses have increased by nearly 8 million Euro a year in the last decade. And ultimately as disappointing as this might be. I just couldn't bridge any further into the walls of the organization. I've no stories from the inside. Yes. So, all I can do is tell you that hopefully one day they will come. All that's really left to do. It's maybe come up with solutions. It will be very easy for me to share more stories about the NCSE. My favorite one was B I was there for heartache. With the new Brunswick model back in 2019. And I'm not sure what actually halted, whether that was the COVID-19 pandemic or the fact that it turned out, it was going to cost more than the current system was costing. However, I feel it's only fair that I would tell you what I would do if I were the minister for education after all, that's the title of my podcast. Despite how bad things have become. And despite had the NCSC was slowly but surely becoming an Ima punishable, bureaucratic machine. I still think it's not too late to rescue it. It's entirely a coincidence, but in the last few weeks, the NCSC has made some announcements. And. On the face. To ease many of the problems that they actually created in the last decade. And I'm going to acknowledge them. I can go to explore them. But you're going to have to wait another couple of weeks. When I aim to rebuild the N C S E. The on-call dot net podcast is written and produced by me, Simon Lewis. If you'd like to hear more of my thoughts on primary education in Ireland, you should subscribe to my mailing list on Shaw dot Nash slash subscribe. If you've enjoyed this podcast so far, please consider reviewing it on your favorite podcast player, as it will help other people find it more easily. Until next time. Thanks so much for listening. Bye-bye.