Irish Examiner view: Schools need funding, not pouches for phones
Phones 'health File Picture: €9m Foley Says Matter, For Pouches Is Norma Wellbeing' On And A
If we didn’t know before the budget, then we certainly did when we witnessed the budget largesse. And while the short-term credits and payments are all welcome for hard-pressed families, our writers noted immediately that we may have lost the opportunity for real generational change.
That position remains eminently defensible. Just yesterday, healthcare unions protested at staff shortages.
And today we report that some 250,000 primary school students are still in classes of more than 25, while the budget contained no obvious provision for reducing class sizes at all.
Instead, we have €9m on pouches to hold secondary students’ phones for the day. A “health and wellbeing” matter, Education Minister Norma Foley says.
Schools around the country seek contributions from parents every year because they face struggles with the basics of heating and lighting. The increase in funding per student — the capitation grant — is welcome, but it remains to be seen if it’s enough.
Already the National Principals’ Forum says it falls short of the minimum to meet bills. As it is, some schools can’t even afford to run the ovens to heat food for the hot meals programme which, while flawed, is admirable.
Yet we have €9m on pouches for students’ phones.
Public dental services for younger children are woefully inadequate, as our columnist Jennifer Horgan notes.
And, as this newspaper has highlighted repeatedly, school-based therapists for more than 100 students in a special school such as Cork’s St Killian’s would cost €150,000 a year. Swathes of the country have no special schools at all, forcing children to travel huge distances.
Yet we have €9m on pouches for students’ phones.
Is 24/7 smartphone access a problem? Yes. Is it better that students be in class without a phone? Yes. Will pouches controlled by the school stop students from putting some old, obsolete piece of tech into a pouch and keeping a smartphone on them? No.
Like the fiasco around the tax on children’s shoes that cost Garret Fitzgerald an election, this has the whiff of politicking rather than addressing a desperate issue. It has emerged that schools in the US have been able to acquire similar pouches for a fraction of the €20-€30 per unit our Government has budgeted for, which makes it look like it will be an even bigger waste of money than it already is.
Many schools already confiscate phones if a student is caught using them, while others have lockboxes on student lockers. And where would the pouches even be kept? Would the school take them and give them back at the end of the day? What if 1,200 students all want their phones at once?
There are students at secondary level in urgent need of real supports, for whom this money would have made a tangible difference in their daily and school lives.
Children cannot win an election for any party, but the Government should remember that their parents can.
As Roman philosopher Cicero said over 2,000 years ago: “What is the worth of human life unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”
So it is good that this year celebrates the 25th anniversary of Waterford Treasures — now five museums covering everything from the Norse to clocks. It is marking the occasion with a conference showing the connections between the city and the wider world throughout history, from London to Newfoundland to the Caribbean.
It is a timely reminder that our island, small in global terms, equals the heritage of anywhere else, a sort of soft power that is hard to come by. All the more important, then, for the country to take the stewardship of its culture seriously, to pass it along as a gift to the generations to come.
As we report in today’s newspaper, studies have shown that actually seeing art in a museum is 10 times better for the brain than seeing a reproduced image of it.
All the better then that we are at a key time for preserving heritage in both Cork and Dublin. Cork’s landmark Crawford Art Gallery is closed for a massive expansion and refurbishment, which will ensure its position as a jewel in the city’s cultural crown, while the Natural History Museum in Dublin undergoes essential works to make sure the building is fit for purpose in the decades ahead.
We won’t know where we’re going unless we know where we’ve been. Ultimately, quality spaces where we can share aspects of the past can only benefit us all in the long run.
Now, according to the Land Development Agency (LDA) chief, Dublin “is largely built out”, meaning space for new homes there is at a premium.
Many people already commute to the capital — often large distances because of housing — with all the detriments not only to their own wellbeing but to the environment as well.
So it is very welcome that the LDA — which aims to provide as many social and affordable homes as feasible — could soon be involved in the construction of as many as 2,000 homes in Cork. That includes nearly 1,000 on sites it already has, and potentially partnering with a developer on another site with planning for 1,000 apartments.
These apartments, in the Docklands, are within walking distance of the city centre. This brings the dream of a 15-minute city a bit closer — with all the community, economic, and environmental benefits that would bring.
Add to that the LDA will have a hand in the 5,000 homes planned for Tivoli, across the river from Páirc Uí Chaoimh, and Cork is really building for the future.