Review of the Year 2024 – January to June

Simon Lewis 00:00:00

Hello hello, you're very welcome to if I Were the Minister for education from anshah.net a regular podcast where I delve into the world of primary education and let you know what I would do if I were the Minister for Education.

Simon Lewis 00:00:14

This is Simon Lewis.

Simon Lewis 00:00:17

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Simon Lewis 00:00:22

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Simon Lewis 00:00:31

If there's nothing else you can say about the Minister for Education, Norma Foley, when we look back at 2024, it's likely she will feature in the Highlights heavily, whether it was her crisis opportunity during the general election campaign or her 9 million euro phone pouches in this episode.

Simon Lewis 00:00:54

Join me as I look back on a year where the Department of Education were more interested in smartphones than teacher shortages, and where all of the problems in the education system seem to be defended by throwing free school books and free school lunches at parents.

Simon Lewis 00:01:13

So without further ado, let's review the year from January to June in this part and later on in the week I'll be moving on to the rest of the year.

Simon Lewis 00:01:24

Ready to go?

Simon Lewis 00:01:25

Let's start with January 2024.

Simon Lewis 00:01:30

Started in the same dark vein as 2023 ended with anti migrant sentiment continuing to flow throughout the country, unfortunately including my own town of Cardo from my adopted town of Cardo.

Simon Lewis 00:01:48

For those of you who hear my South Dublin accent, run it raining through this podcast.

Simon Lewis 00:01:54

Armed with the big Lie theory as that is repeats something often enough and it becomes true, I have to drive by protests in my town and watch school children standing in the cold as their parents said they felt like strangers in their own classrooms.

Simon Lewis 00:02:13

Norma Foley's attentions weren't focused on that, of course, which was more the pity.

Simon Lewis 00:02:20

As far as she was concerned, the biggest problem in the education system was those pesky schools forcing parents to buy smartphones for their children.

Simon Lewis 00:02:32

One thing that didn't seem to be a problem were the vast swathes of money being gifted to the Catholic Church for divesting or reconfiguring as it's known now, their schools to a different patron body.

Simon Lewis 00:02:44

And I spent months in 2023 trying to find out how much it would be that they were paying.

Simon Lewis 00:02:51

And it turns out that per school the government were going to pay between €5,000 and €8,000 a year for each school that was reconfigured.

Simon Lewis 00:03:02

Essentially, if the government reached their target of 400 multi denominational schools, it would be over two and a half million euro per year given and gifted to the Catholic Church.

Simon Lewis 00:03:14

And not forgetting that the state also fund all the bills of those schools, including all of the maintenance and all of the building remains in the ownership of the church after the lease had run out.

Simon Lewis 00:03:27

It was a sweet deal.

Simon Lewis 00:03:28

And I've no idea why the church aren't actually chopping, chomping at the bit to reconfigure as many of their schools as possible.

Simon Lewis 00:03:37

And I guess given the given free solar panels which were also given gifted to them, may have made them think that there's more money to be made by staying put.

Simon Lewis 00:03:47

And as I explored this in January, and despite my best efforts, the media weren't interested in that.

Simon Lewis 00:03:54

They were really still interested in schools banning mobile phones.

Simon Lewis 00:03:58

And as we'll see, that became a theme throughout the year.

Simon Lewis 00:04:02

Meanwhile, in January, the teacher shortage crisis rumbled into its 10th year, with schools in major cities completely unable to fill temporary positions.

Simon Lewis 00:04:11

And while I still think people are missing many of the points as to why we have this teacher crisis, the minister remained in denial that there was a problem at all.

Simon Lewis 00:04:20

And yes, that's going to be another theme as we go through the year.

Simon Lewis 00:04:27

We start the year on a depressing tone.

Simon Lewis 00:04:29

I'm sorry, and I don't know if February is, is going to be any different, but let's move on to that month and let's look at another angle of 2024, the other story of 2024.

Simon Lewis 00:04:42

And I think when we look back at the year 2024, apart from the world of education, we'll be looking at AI and ChatGPT in, I suppose, specifically because it's caused lots and lots of rumbles throughout the world, including the education system.

Simon Lewis 00:04:58

And for me, I found a lot of its power was in how it was able to analyze data.

Simon Lewis 00:05:05

And I found myself thinking a lot about the spreadsheets that the Department of Education actually produces, and they produce quite a few of them.

Simon Lewis 00:05:14

So I decided that I'd use ChatGPT, in the absence of having a statistics degree, to analyze those, the data that they put out behind any, anything to do with special education, specifically the special education allocations.

Simon Lewis 00:05:30

And I spent a lot of February analyzing that.

Simon Lewis 00:05:33

And not only did I find unsurprising evidence that the government press releases weren't exactly telling the truth, more worryingly, the entire set allocation system is completely based upon junk data.

Simon Lewis 00:05:47

There is absolutely no rhyme and no reason for the set allocations that your school receives.

Simon Lewis 00:05:54

And looking at the country on a county by county analysis of resources.

Simon Lewis 00:05:59

Schools in Offaly were receiving an average over 10% more resources than they should have, and schools in County Ross Common, not so far away, were receiving almost 10% less, and every county in between.

Simon Lewis 00:06:12

There was no rhyme and reason.

Simon Lewis 00:06:14

And if you were in a developing school, you were receiving a whopping discrepancy of 43% fewer hours than you should have been as well.

Simon Lewis 00:06:25

And sadly, though, when the set allocations were accidentally released at 11 o'clock at night on a Friday of the new Irish bank holiday, by Saturday morning principals were screwing each other over in the annual event, which is colloquially known as the cluster Games.

Simon Lewis 00:06:43

However, not only was I getting disillusioned with my principal colleagues on the fact that they were quite happy to spend their Friday night of bank holiday essentially screwing each other over, the government decided to turn the screw further by removing the criteria of complex needs from those set allocations.

Simon Lewis 00:07:02

And I'll talk more about that in a couple of months in this review.

Simon Lewis 00:07:07

In the meantime, after a Freedom of Information request, I found the state had gifted over 500 million euro, half a billion euro, to the Catholic Church and other private bodies on capital building projects.

Simon Lewis 00:07:21

From when, do you think, how long would you think that amount of gifting took place?

Simon Lewis 00:07:26

The other five years, 2018 to 2022?

Simon Lewis 00:07:29

However, again, the media weren't interested in that.

Simon Lewis 00:07:32

They were more interested in the fact that 25% of 6 year olds own smartphones.

Simon Lewis 00:07:36

I get that.

Simon Lewis 00:07:37

I get that is a fairly, fairly awful thing.

Simon Lewis 00:07:42

But of course, that's school's faults.

Simon Lewis 00:07:44

Irish exemptions were being given out far too easy, which of course is school's faults.

Simon Lewis 00:07:49

And schools closing for the polling day for the referendum, which didn't pass, was also school's faults.

Simon Lewis 00:07:57

If you read the media in February, do you know what?

Simon Lewis 00:08:01

There's some things, you know, even ChatGPT can't process.

Simon Lewis 00:08:06

Let's move on to March.

Simon Lewis 00:08:09

In March, I learned a new word, quantum, which according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is the smallest amount or unit of something, especially energy.

Simon Lewis 00:08:21

That term, quantum, was used three times in one of the most bizarre statements I've ever experienced in my career from the Irish Primary Principles Network, who decided to turn on their own members when they criticized the Department of Education's decision to cut the complex needs criteria from set allocations.

Simon Lewis 00:08:42

Rather than actually support their members who thought this was shocking, they decided to defend the Department of Education's decision to cut the complex needs criteria.

Simon Lewis 00:08:53

And to quote their statement, it is important to be clear that that children with complex need have not been excluded from the allocation of hours that schools received.

Simon Lewis 00:09:02

And they went on to explain that given that the revised allocations model is now underpinned by more accurate data provided by schools, it is hoped that the quantum of hours allocated to schools will better enable children with additional and complex needs to achieve and thrive in their mainstream settings.

Simon Lewis 00:09:19

I wonder if ChatGPT wrote that quantum so baffling they used it three times in their statement.

Simon Lewis 00:09:27

It's a word that could equally define the IPPN's representation of their own members, in this case the smallest unit of energy March also saw Josepha Madigan stepping down as the Minister for Special Education.

Simon Lewis 00:09:42

Unfortunately for her legacy will be best remembered not for anything to do with it will be to do with special education, but for her many misspeakings, as she called it herself, including calling children without additional needs as normal children.

Simon Lewis 00:09:55

I could go on, but I don't think it's worth spending much more than a quantum on her legacy April despite the hype around Christmas, Easter is actually the most important holiday in the Christian calendar which celebrates the birth of their Lord Jesus Christ.

Simon Lewis 00:10:17

However, in April, a study of over 4,000 teachers by a Catholic organization in the Grace Project revealed that over half of teachers working in Catholic schools who promised that they would uphold the ethos in their interview under the age of 50 don't believe in God.

Simon Lewis 00:10:35

Worse for Jesus was the census records that were released of 25 to 29 year olds in 2022 who are now older and having kids and so on only showed that 53% of them identify at all as Catholics.

Simon Lewis 00:10:50

And worse again, Catholic marriages are at their lowest point at under 35% of marriages.

Simon Lewis 00:10:58

If Jesus hadn't escaped his grave, he would be rolling in it.

Simon Lewis 00:11:02

And if saying that sounds disrespectful, of course it is.

Simon Lewis 00:11:06

But no more disrespectful than the way teachers are expected to be missionaries for the Catholic Church in 90% of primary schools.

Simon Lewis 00:11:14

And which segues me nicely to what used to be a big deal for teachers in the calendar, which was the into Congress where the media covered the motions raised on the role of faith formation this year in 2024 it was actually probably one of the biggest stories of the 2024 IMTO Congress.

Simon Lewis 00:11:36

As much as its importance in the school year has diminished over the last decade or so, it's still one of the highlights of a number of teachers school years.

Simon Lewis 00:11:47

And I know it seems that it's the same people every year going up and complaining, why is there nobody else showing up to this thing?

Simon Lewis 00:11:55

It's a question I often tell them to ask themselves rather than giving out, about why people like me and like many others don't get involved in the into the answer is we don't feel welcome in the club and there's there's some work to be done.

Simon Lewis 00:12:09

But let's move away from my rant and get back to my ponderings on April about why the Inco Congress, with all the motions and many of them the same every year, why was it that religion in education was the one that grabbed the headlines?

Simon Lewis 00:12:26

And why was it that the motion that went through certainly wasn't the motion that was the over overall biggest demand for more people in the country, despite huge work around the country for a very strong motion on religion, the INTO standing Motions committee decided they'd pick the very weak motion from Ross Common of all places, rather than the other counties in Ireland who had much stronger motions.

Simon Lewis 00:12:53

But they said that they wanted, for whatever reason, Ross Common decided that they would put that a survey and that would be what we need.

Simon Lewis 00:13:01

This is the big deal about religion in education.

Simon Lewis 00:13:04

We need a survey and we need to demand the end of the religious certificate in Catholic education.

Simon Lewis 00:13:08

The questions that Ross Common and therefore the Standing Orders committee decided, rather than the much stronger motion that people had put forward was we would ask teachers two questions.

Simon Lewis 00:13:19

Should faith formation education take place in primary schools?

Simon Lewis 00:13:23

And should primary school education in Ireland have secular or religious patrons?

Simon Lewis 00:13:27

Now, I have less of a problem with the first question than I do with the second question.

Simon Lewis 00:13:32

And to be honest, at the time I didn't really comment on it because I was just a bit.

Simon Lewis 00:13:36

I was really miffed, to be honest with you, with those two questions.

Simon Lewis 00:13:39

And number one, they lack absolute nuance.

Simon Lewis 00:13:42

This is a highly complex area.

Simon Lewis 00:13:44

People talk to me about how simplistic my view is of separating church and state.

Simon Lewis 00:13:49

But to add to have a survey asking just those two questions is shocking and the second question is ridiculous.

Simon Lewis 00:13:56

Like who said it's a choice between secular or religious patrons?

Simon Lewis 00:14:01

What about patrons in general?

Simon Lewis 00:14:03

And so on.

Simon Lewis 00:14:03

Sorry, I'm going back into a round.

Simon Lewis 00:14:05

But at this time of writing, which is the end of the school year, the survey is due to be sent out to a selection of members in early 2025.

Simon Lewis 00:14:12

They're not even going to bother asking all of their members.

Simon Lewis 00:14:15

And thinking about the future for teachers who might want to be treated with the slightest level of respect for their private religious beliefs, it's going to need a miracle bigger than any messiah even Jesus could give.

Simon Lewis 00:14:28

And it also shows the contempt Maybe I think that the INTO have for their members that don't go with the flow and accept, I think, and I suppose I'm going again to a third round in April.

Simon Lewis 00:14:43

I think the INTO are probably quite happy with the patronage system.

Simon Lewis 00:14:47

They seem to be.

Simon Lewis 00:14:47

Their question even would suggest that, that they would like to see the continuation of patron bodies.

Simon Lewis 00:14:52

You know, would.

Simon Lewis 00:14:52

Would we rather have secular religious patrons?

Simon Lewis 00:14:55

We.

Simon Lewis 00:14:55

They don't ask the question of should we have patrons at all.

Simon Lewis 00:14:58

I think privately, I don't think they think this is all a big deal and this is just a storm in a teacup.

Simon Lewis 00:15:03

And I do remember actually when I got a call from the INTO after I was.

Simon Lewis 00:15:09

After I was racially abused online when people cared about that kind of thing, I had a call from a member, from a person who was very high level in the into and I congratulated them at the time because at the time they had decided to do so.

Simon Lewis 00:15:21

An act of rebellion, I would say, which was to raise the pride flag in schools, even ones with religious ethos.

Simon Lewis 00:15:27

And I congratulated them at the time because the person involved was heavily involved in that.

Simon Lewis 00:15:32

And when I congratulated them, I thought it was interesting.

Simon Lewis 00:15:35

They said, look, you know, it was an easy, it was an easy victory.

Simon Lewis 00:15:39

We measured the temperature really of the time and it was like nobody really minded.

Simon Lewis 00:15:44

I noticed this year there was very little publication of raising the pride flag in schools.

Simon Lewis 00:15:50

I don't know if they raised the pride flag at all in any of the primary schools because now it isn't as easy as it was.

Simon Lewis 00:15:59

And it was very notable that I didn't see the pride flag being proudly waived this year in June by the into.

Simon Lewis 00:16:06

Anyhow, as I said, easy victories is where they're at.

Simon Lewis 00:16:10

And I think the INTO are just going to wait until other people do all the work and they'll sweep in and say, look what we've been doing anyway.

Simon Lewis 00:16:18

However, one chink of bright light was that 13 years after the forum of patronage and pluralism, the first ever Catholic school divested to educate together.

Simon Lewis 00:16:32

Now, you may not have heard that correctly.

Simon Lewis 00:16:35

13 years later.

Simon Lewis 00:16:38

Yes, years after the forum of patronage and pluralism, I think I might have found a better definition for the word quantum.

Simon Lewis 00:16:51

Let's move to May.

Simon Lewis 00:16:54

May was all about the money and it's all about the dum dum decisions made by the Department of Education, who decided in the midst of rumors of a general election that they would cut funding to the school book grant, reducing it by 17%.

Simon Lewis 00:17:10

The ancillary grant and to the summer program, which is now half of what it was two years before.

Simon Lewis 00:17:16

And as the Minister for Education continued her two chief crusades.

Simon Lewis 00:17:20

Firstly, to blame schools for parents having to buy their children mobile phones, and secondly, to reduce the entire primary education system to a cheap child minding service for working parents in inverted commas, which I have no doubt are both the brainchild of her appointed advisor, a school in Dublin that ran out of classrooms and had to therefore close an after school child minding service that was in one of their classrooms was met with mass protests and a petition of over 1000 signatures.

Simon Lewis 00:17:50

And I found that really interesting that I was looking at the same time when I was looking at this.

Simon Lewis 00:17:57

I also looked for petitions from the same parents or any parents protesting the cuts to the school book grants, the ancillary grants and the summer program.

Simon Lewis 00:18:05

But funny enough, I couldn't find a single petition from those working parents for those cuts to basic services to education.

Simon Lewis 00:18:16

Let's move to the end of the school year.

Simon Lewis 00:18:19

It's June, and as the world seemed to be falling apart with war, you probably may have wondered if I was going to mention any of the terrible conflicts happening around the world.

Simon Lewis 00:18:31

Whether that was Iran, Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, the Russia war in Ukraine or Israel in Gaza.

Simon Lewis 00:18:41

And given my own background, and given that President Michael D.

Simon Lewis 00:18:45

Higgins claimed there was no anti Semitism in Ireland, and given that the day before I had just received a torrent of images featuring stereotypical beasts with large hooked noses and people telling me to get out of Ireland and go and kill some Palestinian children, I felt that despite not feeling very safe doing, but also realizing how stupid that sounds when there are so many Palestinians out there and who are feeling much, much less safe than my stupid feelings.

Simon Lewis 00:19:16

As someone who was brought up in the Jewish faith, I was always taught the bad things happen when good people do nothing.

Simon Lewis 00:19:23

And it was the only way.

Simon Lewis 00:19:25

I remember being told to explain why the Holocaust happened in all the way from the 1930s, all the way before the Holocaust itself, during the Holocaust, and why it came to a point where 6 million Jewish people were killed and several other million minorities were murdered, and how that was justified.

Simon Lewis 00:19:49

And I have spent the last number of years trying to understand how the Israelites that I grew up with, one under Yitzhak Rabin, could move from a place where there was relative peace and a plan for a solution, possibly a two state solution, to one where the Israeli government has essentially lost any form of humanity.

Simon Lewis 00:20:12

I tried my best to articulate my thoughts on the situation in Gaza and try to explain why.

Simon Lewis 00:20:17

Ultimately, I believe that the reason for the rise in antisemitism that I have faced in Ireland in the last number of months is a direct result of the Israeli government justifying their murder of innocent people in my name.

Simon Lewis 00:20:32

And while the majority of Irish people are able to differentiate between Judaism and Zionism or even being Israeli at all, I'm not foolish enough like Michael D.

Simon Lewis 00:20:43

Higgins to believe that antisemitism doesn't exist.

Simon Lewis 00:20:46

It's why I was very uneasy about Michael D.

Simon Lewis 00:20:49

Higgins saying that.

Simon Lewis 00:20:51

And while I absolutely agree with him that criticisms of Israel are not anti Semitic, to say that Irish people are not anti Semitic is highly problematic, especially working in the education system, which I have argued for so many years, is covertly racist.

Simon Lewis 00:21:09

In the same way, I don't believe Irish people are generally xenophobic, despite the widespread protests outside those accommodation centers for migrants that I spoke about in January.

Simon Lewis 00:21:19

Or in the same way I don't believe that Irish people are generally homophobic.

Simon Lewis 00:21:23

Despite the protests in the libraries, I acknowledge there is a growth in xenophobia, homophobia, racism, and anti Semitism and Islamophobia.

Simon Lewis 00:21:32

They are all happening before our very eyes.

Simon Lewis 00:21:35

And to say that none of it is happening is deeply dangerous.

Simon Lewis 00:21:39

Because as days and days go on in 2024, the rise in discrimination in terms of, and I suppose what we can call prejudice, is growing all the time.

Simon Lewis 00:21:52

And this in an education setting where discrimination, blatant discrimination happens and legally discrimination happens every single day, whether it's single sex schools who discriminate by design on gender, whereas 96% of schools discriminate on a daily basis on the foundation of religion.

Simon Lewis 00:22:14

It's just to say things like that is dangerous.

Simon Lewis 00:22:19

And I suppose in the end of my article that I wrote about, and it was the first article I wrote about Israel and maybe I should have written it earlier.

Simon Lewis 00:22:30

I, I guess I was probably a little bit reluctant to write anything given my background and given that I'm one of the only people in the system from minority background.

Simon Lewis 00:22:40

And I suppose there are much, much more thoughtful and intelligent people out there.

Simon Lewis 00:22:45

In fact, I'm not a thoughtful, intelligent person on the, and I don't know very much about, about the intricacies and the complexities of the situations.

Simon Lewis 00:22:54

No more so than anybody else might be, but I am, I guess I also, at a human level, am disgusted by the atrocities that are happening in Gaza and it needs to stop.

Simon Lewis 00:23:06

So at the end of the article I listed much more thoughtful and intelligent articles and lessons that teachers could possibly use if the subject of Israel and Gaza or war in general came up.

Simon Lewis 00:23:16

Which kind of leads me to an unrelated issue that I explored near the end of the school year in June.

Simon Lewis 00:23:22

We have a wonderful array of thoughtful and intelligent teachers in Ireland who do talk about the education system in Ireland.

Simon Lewis 00:23:31

And I have to say, as the as time went on, I find it a little irksome that when that in the media, one of the only teachers that's features in the media has to express herself in a column called the Secret Teacher.

Simon Lewis 00:23:50

I think it's a very strange and weird thing that if the most prominent teacher in the media is not able to express herself without being in secret, that we have a massive problem in the education system that you cannot express yourself outside of the shadows.

Simon Lewis 00:24:16

And furthermore, when the media believe that the most influential figure in Irish education, as the Irish Times put it, is not even Irish.

Simon Lewis 00:24:24

And I'm not saying that in a nationalist sense, but isn't even an educationalist, it's actually a German statistician.

Simon Lewis 00:24:31

And we look at Singapore and Estonia to find out how to do education properly.

Simon Lewis 00:24:38

It can be easy to see how disillusionment can creep in when you work in the education system and you care about the education system and you see the small little nuances of the education system and you understand why the education system is the way it is.

Simon Lewis 00:24:55

And that as much as we can learn from Singapore and Estonia and we should learn from Singapore and Estonia and Finland and all and even our Germans, that our education system needs to be analyzed by people within it and the media need to stop looking.

Simon Lewis 00:25:13

They can look beyond, but they also look have to look within to find what's going on.

Simon Lewis 00:25:17

And we shouldn't have to do that in secret.

Simon Lewis 00:25:21

I guess things could be worse though in Ireland as we come to the end of our first six months.

Simon Lewis 00:25:30

As you probably can see, not a lot of educational things have happened yet in 2024.

Simon Lewis 00:25:37

And as I'm talking it through, I'm wondering, gosh, will something educational happen?

Simon Lewis 00:25:44

But I guess we might think about that in our next episode.

Simon Lewis 00:25:49

And I guess this might sound a bit depressing as an episode, but I guess it could be worse because I was reading in June that Louisiana teachers in America may be forced to teach the Ten Commandments as fact.

Simon Lewis 00:26:02

And I also saw there was a British head teacher, a principal who was in the media because he had to double job as a caretaker because there was not enough money to pay the bills.

Simon Lewis 00:26:13

And I just thought at least nothing like that could happen here.

Simon Lewis 00:26:20

Oh wait, I hope you enjoyed listening to the first six months of my review of the the year 2024.

Simon Lewis 00:26:29

I'll be back in a few days with the rest of the year and we'll see if anything educational happens, or if we're still going to be talking about things that aren't really educational at all.

Simon Lewis 00:26:39

I wouldn't hold my breath if you've enjoyed this episode, please come back to me in a few days and we'll find out what happens from July to December, and we'll see what my conclusions are from the year 2024.

Simon Lewis 00:26:51

Thanks so much for listening.

Simon Lewis 00:26:52

All the very best.

Simon Lewis 00:26:53

Bye.