Our primary priority?
Calvin posted this on Apr 16th 2008 at 16:13 under Children, Education, Evening Echo Column, Parenting, Writing
Published in the Evening Echo on Wednesday 16/04/2008
“I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way,” says the first line of the song “The Greatest Love of All”. Originally recorded by George Benson in 1977 for the Mohammed Ali film “The Greatest”, the track became a hit almost ten years later for Whitney Houston.
The reason I mention it is that perhaps someone could add it to Education Minister Mary Hanafin’s iPod playlist… as a gentle reminder. Last week the minister continued to defend the Government’s funding for education, despite growing evidence that primary schools across the nation are facing huge shortfalls.
This is making the news again… but of course if you’re a parent with primary school children it’s hardly news. Practically every primary school in the country is going cap-in-hand to parents for voluntary contributions to bolster the inadequate government funding, and asking them to help out with ever more wacky fund raising events in the desperate scramble for cash. Where is all this extra money going? Is it being spent on fancy learning aids to enhance our children’s education? No, it’s being used to pay for basic essentials like heating, electricity, insurance and cleaning – all things which should be covered by the state.
But, I hear your cry, the schools have a budget; it’s up to them to manage the money more effectively. That argument might hold water if one or two schools where struggling, but when delegates representing every primary school in the country come together to address an Oireachtas Committee on what they describe as a “mounting crisis” in primary education, it’s time for government to sit up and take notice.
Figures being reported last week suggest that the country’s 3,300 primary schools will this year experience an average funding deficit of €23,200. For a country that’s fond of crowing about its economic prosperity, and continuously promoting it’s role at the forefront of Europe’s emerging knowledge economy, we don’t seem to be doing a very good job when it comes to nurturing the grass roots.
Our primary schools need an injection of funding and they need it now. Not by 2012, not even by 2010, but in 2008. We simply can’t afford not to make this investment. Our future depends upon it.
A solid, well funded primary education system is the bedrock on which our economic prosperity is built. Ireland’s economy is moving away from manufacture, agriculture and industry, and is becoming increasingly information based and knowledge centric. Excelling in a world where knowledge is the currency of commerce demands a highly educated, highly skilled workforce. And the way things are going when that time comes Ireland Inc. could well find itself wanting.
It beggars belief that here, in the land of the vaunted celtic tiger – Europe’s “poster-child” economy – we’re being asked to bake cakes, sell raffle tickets and attend coffee mornings to pay school heating bills. It would be laughable, if it wasn’t so lamentable.
While denying our children access to a properly funded education system is bad enough, the true cost of this funding debacle could run much deeper than that. In a few short years it could quite literally scupper the competitiveness of the entire Irish economy.
So please, Minister, remember that the children really are our future. Invest in that future now… invest in them.
Technorati Tags: Irish primary education,Mary Hanafin,education,Evening Echo,children,parenting
