A Love Letter to the new Minister for Education

Hello, you are very welcome to if I were

the minister for education from on shot

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dot net, a regular podcast where I dive

into the world of primary education in

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Ireland and let you know what I would

do if I were the minister for education.

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This is Simon Lewis speaking.

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If you enjoy this podcast, please

consider subscribing to my fortnightly

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the news from Irish primary education

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and beyond from my own perspective.

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And I also give some hints and tips from

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other bonus materials that's at onshaw.

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net slash subscribe.

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On this week's show, I

am writing a love letter.

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Don't worry, it's not

that kind of love letter.

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It's a letter where I tell the new

Minister for Education what I would love

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to see happening in the Irish primary

education system under the new government.

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Now, despite my detective work and I

went through a top 10 possibilities,

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actually it was a top 13 possibilities of

who the next minister for education was.

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I was completely wrong.

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Even this the new minister

for education is Helen McEntee

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and congratulations to her.

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But she didn't even feature in

my top 10, never mind my top 13.

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She was completely off my radar.

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And I hope you don't take this the wrong

way that's you, the listeners, and maybe

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this tells me how little I believe the

ministry means in terms of importance

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to politicians, but I honestly didn't

consider Helen McEntee for the ministry

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simply because she's the deputy leader

of Fianna Ghael, and I expected her to

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be given the a more senior position.

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And when I say a senior position, I

really don't like the fact that education

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isn't considered to be, I suppose

it's a senior position, but one of the

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minor senior positions in the party.

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And I don't know, maybe that says a

lot about how Ireland and how the Irish

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population value the education system.

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When you look at other countries,

That have prioritized education, and

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you can see how that has affected

their entire economy, their entire

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government, their entire outlook.

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You look at the likes of Estonia

Poland, to a point, you look at

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Finland, of course, who did that in

the nineties, and we saw how it became

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the most happiest country in the world.

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The.

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Best education system in the world

and even their economy became

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one of the biggest in the world.

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You remember Nokia and some of the

other successes that have come from

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tech in Finland, but in Ireland,

we just don't value education.

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Beyond it being a childcare service, I

was struck this week when I was reading

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some articles about Helen McEntee

being the Minister for Education.

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There was one that jumped out at me.

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I think Mary McCarthy was the was

the journalist who spoke about

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Helen McEntee and why she was glad.

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Ellen McEntee was potentially potentially

why she was glad she would be the

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Minister of Education because, and this

is why, she has two young children who

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will be starting school and essentially

what she will be able to do is sort

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out the childcare arrangements that

she has to, that she's going to have

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to suffer from the fact that infants

finish an hour earlier than their

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counterparts in first class upwards.

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This is why.

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Was the main focus for Helen McEntee,

according to this journalist, and if

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we consider if we keep pushing that our

primary education system is no more or

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little more than a childcare service

we're going to get what we wish for.

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And, I think the fact that we do so well

in the various OECD studies is going

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to, we're going to find that dropping.

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Because we value it so little and we

seem to be pushing it, with it rather

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than actual pedagogical thing which we

actually were pretty doing pretty well

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at in terms of pedagogy into things

like free school books, free lunches,

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free this and childcare services.

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We will reap what we sow in

my view if that's the case.

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Anyway, I haven't even started on my love

letter and I'm giving out, but maybe I'm

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wrong that we see education as a minor

portfolio because the fact that McEntee

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is, has been given the role says to me

that it's valued, that it is a big deal

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for the deputy leader of a political

party to take on the education portfolio.

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And I may be being over optimistic,

but it might mean that the last almost

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decade of neglect of education, where

effectively, I suppose what you consider.

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a minor politician getting the role.

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We look at Norma Foley and we

look at Joe McHugh before that.

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Neither of those, both of those cases.

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When they were announced, the first

thing that most people said was, who?

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And it's nice to see that we

have a politician that people

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know already and was a senior

and still is a senior politician.

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So maybe something will happen if we think

back to the previous two ministers before

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that, Richard Bruton and Rory Quinn.

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Both of those.

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While maybe divisive in some ways,

both of those did make an impact

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during their tenure and didn't

just neglect the education system.

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They actually had some impact,

whether we liked it or not.

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But of the top 10 people, I just

want going back to my top 10 people.

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I was most excited about

being the minister for

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education from Fianna that is.

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I had hoped it would have been Jennifer

Carole McNeil for the simple reason

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that she was a politician on the rise.

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So her elevation to health

suggests that the leadership agree.

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And despite a rather shaky term injustice,

I still feel that McEntee is someone who

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is on the rise within Irish politics.

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And this move to education will

possibly be a place where she

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might be able to relaunch herself.

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I feel she was I think unfairly

treated injustice so maybe moving

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her to education to rebuild again

may give her that opportunity.

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It makes me hope, perhaps, that

the next few years might be

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interesting, and McEntee, if she

is brave, Could potentially be

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a 21st century Donna O'Malley.

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Now, that's me possibly being way

over optimistic, but we'll see.

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So this love letter, as I call it,

is a list of things I would love

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to see happening in the primary

education sector in Ireland.

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And I'm going to start.

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I have this funny kind of thing.

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I don't know if I've ever told

you this on the podcast before.

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Whenever I meet.

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People people and when I say people,

when I meet principled mainly

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and they talk to me and they say,

listen, I listen to your podcasts.

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I read your blogs and things like that.

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And you know what?

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I agree.

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And they always say this.

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I agree with about 80 percent

of what you talk about.

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They always say that.

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And it's always 80%.

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It's funny.

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I always wish they'd get to 90

or 95%, but it's always 80%.

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And when I get the, when I talk

to them, I say, do you don't mind

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me asking, the way you said, 80%.

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You agree with 80 percent of what I say.

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What's the 20 percent

that you disagree with?

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And that is my first love essentially.

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And they don't agree with me on

this, but it's my love letter.

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So I'm going to say it.

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And it's what I feel

absolutely passionate about.

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I would love the minister to tackle.

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The whole idea of patronage.

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And I don't think it's going to

come as any surprise to anyone

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that would be my first love.

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The patronage system, to me,

is long past its sell by date.

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And I don't think even people who

80 percent disagree with me, or

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agree with me, disagree with that.

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And I'm beginning, to explore

a little more deeply how it

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affects almost every aspect of the

Irish primary education system.

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And in some ways, I think the reason it

hasn't been looked at is because it's

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generally always sold along religious

lines and that causes You know, rather

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than that causing logical reactions to

things, when I talk about the patronage

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system, everyone should, and rightly

so it jumps to, religious control of

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schools and I'm I've been exploring a

little bit about why this tact of mine

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hasn't been working, and I mentioned

it briefly in my previous episode

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where I talked about the defensiveness

people feel when I talk about

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Catholic schools not being inclusive.

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And I wrote an article which

you'll see in the show notes,

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it's called Why I Understand Why

Catholic Schools Call Themselves

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Inclusive Even Though They're Not.

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And I talked about like why I can

absolutely understand the defensiveness

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of Catholic principles of Catholic

schools, getting defensive when I say

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that Catholic schools can't be inclusive

when they really believe they are.

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And, I really wanted to think deeply

of trying to get into their mindset.

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And I suppose I looked at myself

and where the times that I get

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defensive, even when I know.

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The person who's saying things is right,

so I talked a little bit about the

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situation in Gaza and, even when people

are being critical rightly of the Israeli

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government, some part of deep inside

of me because I was raised in a Jewish

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family, gets this like defensiveness

because there's this feeling, Oh, maybe

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these people are being anti Semitic, even

though I know they're not, or in fact,

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I suspect And even there, you can hear

that the slight defensiveness in me.

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So I can see how Catholic principals in

Catholic schools who went to Catholic

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schools themselves and are sending

their kids to Catholic schools and

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who go through the motions of all the

Catholic sacraments and everything

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else would get defensive if when I'm

criticizing a world that they just know.

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And they're used to, and they're not used

to people looking at it in a critical way.

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I also have, I go on about a

friend of mine, an American.

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A friend of mine who also feels that way

when people are giving out about American

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people being so stupid as to elect Trump.

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And despite the fact that she herself

is very liberal, wouldn't have voted

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for Trump, this idea that, you know

when Irish people or people are

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calling Americans stupid, she gets

this sort of feeling of defensiveness.

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That she can totally understand as

well and it's a I don't know if it's

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an interesting article, but it's

there in the show notes which kind

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of describe why why I can understand.

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So, long story short.

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What I think I feel, what I feel I

need to do is rather than tackling

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patronage myself from a religious

point of view despite, I'm not

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saying I'm going to stop doing that.

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What I do need to find out is how does

patronage take religion out of patronage?

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How is it affecting

the way we run schools?

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I've been looking at that a little

bit, and I was really interested,

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how it goes way beyond religion.

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For example, it was really interesting

to me how Stormy Owen gave the ability

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for the state to insist schools close for

the day, but the same couldn't happen.

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for the snow a couple

of weeks before that.

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And in neither case were the

Department of Education allowed

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to tell schools to close.

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For the storm, a red weather warning.

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It was the National Emergency

Coordination Group that made the decision.

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And for the snow, because it was

an orange warning, the same group

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didn't have the authority to close

schools, but neither did the, did.

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The Department of Education.

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And as usual, it came down the line

to individual schools because, as the

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Department of Education always say when

there's something difficult to do, It

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is a matter for all individual schools.

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The new minister Helen McEntee, needs

to address how the patronage system

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affects everything from legal religious

discrimination to more efficient

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coordination on policies and procedures.

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For example, On the latter, every school

is going to have to produce its own anti

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bullying policies for this new B conalta

framework, despite the fact that they're

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pretty much all going to be the same.

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The Department of Education have no

power to produce the policy for all

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schools, and all of them have to adapt it.

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Similarly, A few years ago, the

NCSE were given new powers by the

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Department of Education to force

schools to open special classes.

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And in order for that to happen,

the Department of Education couldn't

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demand directly that schools would

change their policies to an, to

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allow the NCSE to open to, for,

to force schools, to open classes.

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They actually had to go to the

patron bodies to ask for them to ask.

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individual schools to change their

policies to allow themselves to

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be forced to open special classes.

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I'm not sure if that makes

sense, but the department

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actually didn't make the demand.

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They made the demand to patron

bodies to make the demand

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to their individual schools.

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And if the patron refused, I'm not really

sure what the department could have done.

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Particularly if it was

Catholic schools, because they

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control 90 percent of schools.

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So in some ways, and I

think this is interesting.

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With that in mind, and this is where

I think there is a significantly

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potential problem should the government

wish to push through policies

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to primary schools in Ireland.

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Should the Catholic Church be against

any policy or any circular or any

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idea that the department wants to push

through, the Catholic Church probably

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holds the power if they choose to do so.

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Because.

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If they refuse to allow 90 percent of

schools in the country to do something,

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it's not really going to happen, is it?

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Realistically, no other

patron has that power.

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If, for example, the Educate Together

network decided, I'm not going to, we're

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not going to do this particular policy,

whatever it might be, it doesn't have

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to be, it's nothing to do with religion,

the Department of Education will go,

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OK, fine, we won't give you any funding.

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However, if the Catholic Church decides

to do it, I don't think the Department

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of Education are going to stand up and

say we're not going to fund your schools,

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we're not going to build any schools for

you, because it's 90 percent of schools.

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There would be outrage.

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All the Department of Education

can do is withhold funding.

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That's what I think they, that's

all they can do from the patronage.

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And while I think they'd have no

issue doing that to a smaller patron.

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I don't think they try it

with the Catholic ones.

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It's actually interesting that the only

time I've ever heard the Department of

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Education withdrawing funding in recent

history was actually for a Muslim school.

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And again, I've linked, made a link

in the show notes to an article

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where Bat O'Keefe withdrew grants

from the board of an Islamic school.

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And I've never heard of it happening.

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In any other school in the country.

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I would love the new minister to

get a group together to look at the

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structure of patronage and come up

with a long term plan to changing it.

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So outside of her remit, because

if she doesn't last longer than

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the five years, I don't, I think

this is a longer term thing.

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But I do think a new group

has to come together.

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I think it's basically a new patronage

for forum of patronage and pluralism,

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because obviously, as we know, that.

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didn't work.

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We need a new patronage forum, and maybe

we need to get rid of the whole pluralism

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idea, but that's for another story.

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In fact, I could write a full

book on this but I will move on.

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I would love the new minister.

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to sort out special

education once and for all.

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Now, if the new minister thinks opening up

as many special classes in special schools

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is all it's going to take to sort out

special education, she is going to fail

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spectacularly at rebuilding her brand.

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The neglect of special education

was ongoing since the recession, and

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it needs to be addressed quickly.

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And as soon as possible.

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the 20 percent cut to resource hours,

which was never reversed and remains in

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place through the set allocation model.

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The minister will also have to

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which were no better, especially

the set allocation model.

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and front loading models.

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While there were some green shoots

with the front loading model, the set

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allocation model remains a complete

mess, based on junk data and over 90

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percent of schools not receiving enough

resources for the children in their care.

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And on top of all of this, schools need

proper therapeutic wraparound services.

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For me, This is what successful countries

do, and this is what makes them stand out.

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And I'm sorry to go on about Finland

again, but I went over there.

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And I have to say, and I've

written an article about this.

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When I went to Finland, there was

nothing amazing about their teaching.

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In fact, I felt we were superior

in our teaching methodologies.

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But what they had, every school

had a psychologist, a social

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worker, and a nurse on site.

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And in Ireland, we need something similar.

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We also possibly need, because

we're in such, there's a

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Yiddish word, we're in stach.

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It means we're absolutely at

nothing, we are in terrible bother.

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We need speech and language therapists.

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Occupational therapists, I think that

would top the list of needs right now.

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I suppose behavioral

therapists maybe as well.

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I don't know.

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But certainly a psychologist,

social worker, nurse, and

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therapist would be very valuable.

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I have argued that special education

will be the scandal of the 21st century.

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And if the new minister can stop that

from happening, she would be well in

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line for the same accolades, I think,

as Dhana O'Malley would have received.

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So let's move on.

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I would love to see new and

better leadership supports.

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Now, if there's one thing that the

Irish Primary Principals Network,

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that's the IPPN, has done in the

last few years, it was to highlight

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that primary school principals suffer

double the amount of stress and mental

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health issues of the national average.

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It is quite mad that the department

have yet to do anything concrete

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to help despite the promises in the

Programme for Government this time.

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While the IPPN.

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are rolling out a rather strange series

of seminars on making the job doable.

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This is the title of their seminars.

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I am going to go to one of them

to to see what it's all about.

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Given that they argue it isn't

sustainable, the departments

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have yet to make any assurances

of anything they're going to do.

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The focus now needs to

be on reducing workload.

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Ever since I got involved with the

IPPN and also with the National

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Principals Forum, every single

survey that I was involved in more

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or less indicated that workload was

the biggest priority for principals.

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I would also suggest that the new

minister needs to stop drip feeding

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the positions of responsibility back.

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She simply needs to

restore them all in one Go.

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The INTO should really be

hanging their heads into shame.

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For many reasons, but on this one in

particular, they had a directive that

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we would not cooperate with SSE until

the posts of responsibility were back.

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And the minute that they were drip

fed they completely lifted that

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that directive and they should never

have lifted the directive until

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all positions were back in place.

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And the stress that has been caused by

this drip feeding is not fair on INTO.

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But on both the schools involved and

but also the teachers who year after

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year have to come back to an interview

and it must be just depressing for

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certain teachers who over the last I

suppose they've been drip feeding for

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I don't know what seven or eight years

and that means a lot of schools will

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be obviously advertising a new post

every year and every year they go to the

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interview with the best will in the world

and every year they get disappointed.

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It just must be.

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Oh, it must be depressing and it's

awful and it shouldn't be happening.

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Basically, restore all the rest of them

in one go and be done with it because and

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at least that way we can actually start

planning properly again because again,

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we can't plan either without knowing

whether the posts are coming back or not.

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Anyway, enough ranting on that one.

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Let's go to the next one.

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I would love for us to go back to

focusing on teaching and learning.

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When I've been asked the biggest

difference that I've noticed in

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primary education, I give the example

of when I was last in the classroom.

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Back then, I probably, I would say,

made two phone calls to parents a year.

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Yes, a year.

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These days, teachers probably

make two phone calls a day.

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Teachers are spending so much of their

day tackling non teaching issues,

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whether that's unnecessary paperwork,

dealing with increased behaviours, and

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replying to constant streams of emails.

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I'm leaving a lot out in that list.

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That's just three examples.

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So much is expected of teachers.

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And very little of it has

anything to do with education.

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The new curriculum has been a

massive disappointment to me.

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What could have easily been a

revolution of 21st century learning

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curriculum, even with the new subjects.

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So much more could have been

achieved and it simply wasn't.

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The Department of Education has spent

the last five years turning primary

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education into a child care service.

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That's not taking anything away from

child care of course, it's just not what

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primary education is supposed to be.

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Initiative after initiative has been

focused on benefiting parents rather

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And when I say benefiting parents, I

mean their pockets, as in their money.

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Whether it's free school books, free

school meals, free school transport,

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everything seems to be focused

on parents, financial situations,

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rather than children's brains.

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Teachers are rarely mentioned by

the Minister for Education when she

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was making announcements and this is

also something that needs to change.

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I can't believe I'm about to say

this, but Teaching is central

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to good outcomes for education.

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When we are preventing teachers

from teaching, we are in big

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trouble, and we will see this,

or if we aren't going to already.

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I would love for our new minister

to ensure that teaching becomes

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central to the role of the teacher.

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Anything that is important, but unrelated

to teaching, needs to be given to someone.

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else which leads me to my next love.

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I would love a new position called the

teaching assistant to arrive in Ireland.

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Yes, I would love the Minister

for Education to announce a new

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post, the Teaching Assistant.

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It's probably links to my previous

point, as I said, but it is madness

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to believe that for 21st century

learning to happen that can be

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done in a classroom by one person.

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There are so many conflicting needs

going on in every primary school

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classroom in the country that one

person simply can't manage them all.

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For example, when a disagreement takes

place on Yard, the This now takes huge

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time away from teaching and learning.

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For example, if some children are

really struggling with a concept, a

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teaching assistant could help work

with other children in the classroom.

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For example, if a phone call needs

to be made to book an appointment

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with a parent, you get the point.

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The new minister for education

needs to look into the idea of

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teaching assistants urgently.

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I would love.

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the new minister to tackle the

lack of diversity in teaching.

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As I often quote, 99.

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7 percent of primary school

teachers in Ireland are white.

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and Irish, and this compares

very poorly with almost every

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other job in the country.

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And I think the Dáil may be the

only workplace that is less diverse.

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I am still the only mainstream primary

school principal in Ireland from an ethnic

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minority, and I often joke that I'm not

even a good example because everyone

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that sees me assumes that I'm not.

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Visually, I am also white.

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And Irish.

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And to me, this is crazy.

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However, I don't believe

it isn't by design.

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The entire structure of our Irish

primary education system makes it really

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difficult for diversity to happen.

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Yes, we have a few teachers

coming through the system now,

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but it's nowhere near enough.

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These teachers are still the only

ones in their year groups rather

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than being representative of society.

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Those who speak to the media admit they

are unlikely to find employment easily

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due to the obstacles in place in Ireland.

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And on top of this, for whatever reason,

people cannot see past diversity equaling

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migrants, and that it will take time

for them to progress into the system.

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And it's nonsense.

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We're already well into two

generations of native Irish people

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who come from diverse backgrounds.

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I would love the new

minister to start talking.

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Taking the lack of diversity in

our system seriously, of all the

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issues I've mentioned, to me this

is the easiest one to tackle.

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It's a shocking failure of everyone

involved in the education system that

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we are still in a situation, especially

our trade union movement, the INTO,

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who should be leading on this, who

should be leading on it so strongly

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so the minister can take this on.

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And I think if a minister does take this

on, they will reap the rewards of it.

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I'm shocked, to be honest, about the

INTO and how poorly they are doing this.

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And maybe I'll do an episode

completely based on diversity

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within the education system.

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I think it's definitely worth,

looking at the pitfalls and I

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do feel I'm justified in really

pointing most of my ire on the INTO.

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My understanding of unions is equality.

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Is number one about when it comes

to everything that equality has to

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be number one, and I do not sense

any appetite for pushing against

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this issue, and I know it's very

difficult, and I know it's really hard.

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To put yourself out there when the

majority of people disagree with you.

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But that's the job of a union, in my view.

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Anyway, I'm moving on to the union

rather than the minister for education.

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And look, I feel I've gone over gone

quite far in time wise, and I won't

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keep going and annoying you with.

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Other issues, but obviously there are

many other areas that the new Minister

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for Education needs to consider.

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Funding is a huge one, of course, and I

think we'll be talking about that again.

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Climate change and biodiversity, I

think these are areas that are really

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important for this generation of children.

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They need to prepare themselves for a

world and we've seen that, as I've said,

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about the storms and the snow, and are

these going to be very common things?

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We need to obviously get the

Ministry to focus on technology.

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That's still very much an interesting

area where it's becoming a curriculum

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subject, but there's no guaranteed funding

every year for it, and much, much more.

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But I hope this gives a flavour of

what I'd love to see to change, and

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I would love to hear what you think.

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So that's it from me for this week.

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I hope you enjoyed my love letter to

the Minister for Education of all the

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things I would love to see happening.

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And if you've enjoyed this, as I said,

please subscribe to my newsletter

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on shop dot net slash subscribe.

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And I would love to hear from you.

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And any.

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If there is anything else you'd

like me to discuss on this podcast,

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I'd love to get suggestions.

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If you are passionate about something,

you'd like me to interview you.

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I love having an interview with people.

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So please get in touch as well.

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Other than that, you can find

me on all the social platforms.

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I'm enjoying myself a little

more on Instagram these days.

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Also LinkedIn as exp continues to

fall out of favor with all of us.

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Thank you very much for listening.

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We'll catch you again soon.

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All the very best.

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Bye bye.