Anseo.net #25 Newsletter 📌 Who will be the next Minister?

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By the time you read this, the new Minister for Education is likely to have been unveiled and, out of the blue, Helen McEntee might be grabbing to post from favourite Patrick O’Donovan. She wasn’t in my top ten possibilities for the job!

In this newsletter:

🎙 Latest episode of the podcast

💭 Education Stories over the last few weeks

🧵 Some threads 

Don’t forget, you can read all of my previous newsletters on Anseo.net. Please pass on this newsletter to your friends and please encourage them to subscribe so it comes to their inbox every 2 weeks.

Latest Podcast Episode

Join me as I meet Muireann Sadlier from Cyber Smarties Ireland where we talk about technology, namely how to keep children safe when it comes to social media. We have a really good chat and she leaves me with plenty to consider!

I’ve had a busy time in the media over the last couple of weeks. I briefly spoke on RTE Drivetime about the Schoolbook scheme. It was a pre-record so they didn’t air my line that every time an independent bookshop closes, I curse the Minister for Education!

I also got to visit Newstalk’s studios for the first time in many years as I happened to be in Dublin that day. I met Anton Savage to talk about Sweden ditching iPads for textbooks.

While we are waiting for the next Minister for Education to be announced, I decided to pick through the Programme for Government in terms of primary education. After reading it, we badly need a good Minister. It’s a very weak document.

The Programme for Government seems to have quietly dropped the target of 400 multidenominational schools which caught the ire of the Community National Schools who were named in the last two programmes as preferred patrons. Yes, the patronage model doesn’t seem to be going away so I decided to blame it for both the recent snow and the school meals’ programme.

In a surprise to no one except the green hoodie wearing hooligans and their supporters, gender identity isn’t going to be part of the new SPHE curriculum. Naturally, the moral panicking crew don’t believe it and are creating a conspiracy theory as we speak. There are plenty of issues with the new curriculum and this was never one of them.

In another surprise to no one, there’s been a massive increase in Irish exemptions being granted. The outrage that 20,000 of them are studying another language is also predictable.

Meanwhile, a report from the Department of Education states relationships between teachers and SNAs can be filled with tension. In a bizarre turn, SNAs are described by teachers as having a motherly role, which not only reeks of sexism, but must be news to the male SNAs.

It’s been quite a busy two weeks in education so a brief mention of other stories from here and around the world:

• 1/5 of schools in Burkina Faso have closed due to ongoing conflict
• Imagine publishing a picture of a 9-year-old in a National newspaper because he skipped school?
• Or a headteacher who put 240 students into detention in a single day.
• Though in Wales, teachers will no longer change nappies or pull-ups unless there is a ‘medically recognised need’ but how did we get to this!
• However, we join in the madness as parents seem to think if they send their kids to private schools, they should have the same benefits as those of us “slumming it” in public schools. 

Given how “threadful” X has become, I’ve decided to focus on anything I can find on social media that might be of interest. Some of them I’ve found and some of them I’ve made. Let me know what you think.

• A summary of gender and primary education (Bluesky)
• Things we hear all the time about Catholic schools (Instagram)
• A thread of why I think patronage has made the Schools’ Meal Programme ineffective. (Bluesky)
• Why getting cultural names right is a big deal (Instagram)
• Lessons can be learned from the pastor that stood up to Donald Trump. Bad things happen when good people say nothing.

I’ve been developing some videos on my YouTube channel to summarise my articles and opinions using AI. I created a guide to buying Chromebooks and the video below might help. I’m using an app called Pictory to do this. While I like Pictory, I do have a couple of niggles with it. The big big problem is that it doesn’t have any Irish accents, which is very annoying so I’ve had to go with a pleasant sounding Australian guy. It also takes me about 20 minutes to produce each video as one has to pay $99 per month to use their API model. Unless I’m getting millions of clicks, that’s just not an option. However, it is the simplest way to create AI generated faceless videos I’ve found so far but unless they get the Irish accent sorted, I’ll be moving on.

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