Latest news with #principals
Irish Times
13-07-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Some schools are relying on deposit return scheme to stop them going broke
If you are stumbling across sacks of cans and bottles in your child's primary school , welcome to free education. The deposit return scheme is all that is standing between some primary schools and penury. Patiently feeding plastic bottles into the maw of machines outside supermarkets is keeping the lights on and schools open. Meanwhile, more is being spent on free hot meals for students than on education itself. One principal in a middle-class urban area in the west told me it costs €35,000 per month to run her large school. She receives around €21,000 in funding every month from the Department of Education and Youth , but nearly €40,000 a month from the Department of Social Protection for school meals. Her students' families are not deprived. She does not begrudge the free meals, but she wonders about priorities, given that education has been underfunded for decades. READ MORE She does resent that principals are supposed to be leading teaching and learning but instead, her days are consumed by finding ways to fund the €14,000-a-month shortfall. She is also acutely conscious that she is in the privileged position of being able to balance her budget while colleagues, especially but not only in deprived areas, are constantly running unsustainable deficits. Her hall is in high demand for rental. An after-school creche on the premises provides a valuable community service and desperately needed cash. She reluctantly levies voluntary subscriptions and is grateful that parents are both able and are eager to help with fundraising. In contrast, she knows that a principal colleague in a small primary school of 150 students cleans the school herself because she cannot afford cleaners. [ How is a school with €8,000 supposed to pay €10,000 worth of bills? Opens in new window ] As Seamus Mulconry, secretary general of the Catholic Primary School Management Association (CPSMA) has said, what used to be some schools' problem is now every school's problem. CPSMA analysed the increase in costs for 250 schools from the academic year 2018-2019 to 2023-2024. Cleaning and sanitation rose by 60 per cent, utilities by 44 per cent, and insurance by 34 per cent. ICT equipment and services rose by an astonishing 551 per cent but don't mention ICT grants to principals. This year, principals were anticipating an ICT grant that would be the same as previous years, that is, €39.73 per mainstream student. They invested in equipment and software on that basis. Instead, schools received 36 per cent less, €25.33 per mainstream student. The department stated that there had been no cut. The grants had been front-loaded and it was always planned that the remaining tranche would be less than previous years. Principals pointed out that this is typical of communications with schools. There is no clarity from year to year about the amount that schools will receive and uncertainty about when they will receive it. How are schools supposed to budget? Schools are no longer places of chalk and talk. Schools use administration software such as Aladdin where the contracts can cost thousands. [ Schools told they cannot spend €9m phone pouch budget on other education needs Opens in new window ] Some schools have lifts – another maintenance contract. Alarms and security systems are now essential. Add that to the cost of living crisis and no wonder schools are, as Mulconry says, no longer underfunded but underwater. This is the time of year when budget priorities are decided. Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers is besieged from all quarters. He is to be commended for the fact that despite the pressures of the job, he has found time to be a community representative on the board of management in Scoil Ghrainne, in Clonee. It seems like an exemplary school, having had two autism classes since 2015, which it calls Croí classes. But it is still strapped for cash and its parents association fundraises, including through raffles and lotteries. The parents association also fielded marathon runners and in conjunction with the Keith Duffy Foundation (KDF), raised €15,000 for 'counselling services, autism assessments, teacher training for additional needs, and extracurricular activities for Croí classes. Thanks to KDF, the Sensory Pod Company is sponsoring a fully equipped sensory room.' It is not a cheap shot at Chambers to point out that the state-run community national school where he volunteers has to fundraise for its most vulnerable students. The system was broken long before he entered politics. The basic capitation grant is going up by €24 from September, but will not even make a dent in the persistent financial crisis. The payments system to schools is spread throughout the year and is cumbersome, frustrating and antiquated. A commission or taskforce is urgently needed to examine school finances. Every school has to submit audited accounts to the Financial Support Services Unit. It's imperative that all the data on these shortfalls is analysed now so that it is transparent what it really costs to run our schools. It is insane that schools pay VAT. Rendering education VAT exempt might be a first step. No amount of bottles and cans will solve persistent financial shortfalls. School leaders' public spirit is being exploited because everyone knows that their commitment to education keeps them grimly attempting to do the impossible. It is unacceptable to leave principals teetering dangerously on the edge of burnout.
The Herald
18-06-2025
- General
- The Herald
‘Teaching is breaking us': Eastern Cape's crisis a microcosm of national meltdown
When half of SA's teachers are ready to leave the profession, not because of unruly pupils but because of toxic work environments, you know the system is teetering on the edge. That's what a national study by Stellenbosch University recently revealed. It found that nearly 50% of teachers want to quit, citing stress, poor leadership and burnout, not discipline issues, as the final straw. But what the study does not capture is how this crisis hits harder and deeper in places like the Eastern Cape. In the under-resourced, overlooked schools of the Ngcobo education district, teachers aren't just 'thinking' about leaving. They're already disengaged, emotionally battered and on the brink of collapse. The reality? Children are being taught by professionals who barely hold it together, and no-one is coming to save them. The forgotten foot soldiers Teachers in this district are drowning in stress; silent, unseen casualties of a broken system. But here's the shocking part: most principals have no training or support to help them recognise or manage this burnout. That's not opinion; it's fact, backed by local research involving face-to-face interviews with teachers in five Ngcobo primary schools. Teachers report being emotionally exhausted, unsupported and repeatedly exposed to unresolved conflicts, unfair workloads and dysfunctional leadership. One respondent put it bluntly: 'Some principals don't know how to handle school conflict. There are no structures placed to look after us.' In other words, teachers are suffering in silence while school leaders, many themselves overwhelmed and ill-equipped, turn a blind eye. It starts in grade R and ends in crisis Let's not forget: these aren't high schools. These are primary schools where children are forming foundational skills in reading, maths and emotional development. But when the teacher in front of them is burnt out, angry and absent, what kind of foundation are we laying? Imagine a grade 2 child trying to learn to read from a teacher battling anxiety and depression, someone who hasn't received psychological support in years. That child does not stand a chance. And yet, there are no psychologists, no social workers, and no systemic support for rural teachers. It's a powder keg, and it's already exploding. No systems, no training, no hope According to Voyiya's research, most principals in Ngcobo have no formal systems to identify teachers in distress. They aren't trained to intervene. They don't get the support needed to build a healthy school climate. The result? Dysfunction, absenteeism, incomplete syllabi and plummeting morale. Contrast that with the national picture from Stellenbosch University: teachers across the country are desperate for change. But in rural Eastern Cape schools, the desperation has metastasised into resignation, both literal and emotional. The phrase 'chronic stress' appears in textbooks. But in Ngcobo, it's playing out in real-time, every school day. A failure of leadership and policy Why is it that, in 2025, with all our talk of 'transforming basic education,' there is still no national mandate to train principals in psychosocial leadership? Why is rural Eastern Cape still treated as a footnote in the education conversation, when it's arguably the front line? We need to reframe principals not just as administrators, but as human resource managers, emotional first responders and mental wellness advocates. Until we do, nothing changes. The department of basic education must introduce mandatory psychological wellness training, support systems for school leaders, and place social workers in every school. Anything less is a betrayal. When the teachers break, the system crumbles SA doesn't have a learning problem. It has a leadership problem. It has a support problem. It has a justice problem. If the national government truly cares about learning outcomes, it must stop obsessing over test scores and start caring about the people delivering the curriculum. Teachers aren't robots, they are humans facing immense emotional strain, especially in rural provinces like the Eastern Cape. So here's the hard truth: if we don't address teacher stress with urgency, our children will be taught by ghosts, people present in body but long gone in spirit. And that, more than anything, should terrify us. Dr Mzoli Osborn Voyiya is a school principal and graduated with a PhD in Education Management at Walter Sisulu University, supervised by Prof Sanjay Balkaran. His research focused on teacher wellbeing, rural school leadership and systemic support in under-resourced education districts. This special report into the state of literacy, a collaborative effort by The Herald, Sowetan and Daily Dispatch, was made possible by the Henry Nxumalo Foundation
RNZ News
16-06-2025
- General
- RNZ News
Schools not ready to grade reports against new curriculums
Schools are taking a cautious approach to reporting with the change in curriculum. File photo. Photo: Unsplash/ Taylor Flowe Some primary schools warn they are not ready to grade children against the new English and maths curriculums in mid-year reports to parents. The curriculums were introduced this year and the Education Ministry has proposed a new four-point scale to standardise the way schools describe children's achievement. It suggested four descriptors: needs support, progressing towards, proficient, and excelling. "Needs support" would apply to children who were not meeting the level of achievement expected of their year group and needed significant guidance and assistance, Pupils who were "progressing towards" could complete tasks with some guidance and needed targeted support while those who were "proficient" would be meeting expectations for their year level. The draft said "exceeding" could apply to students who consistently showed advanced understanding, knowledge and skills for their year level. The ministry told schools they could use the descriptors if they wanted to, but there was no requirement to do so this year. Testing several years ago suggested the new maths curriculum would be more challenging, but the children who sat those tests had not been taught the curriculum. Principals spoken to by RNZ were reluctant to say children who met curriculum expectations last year might not meet expectations under the new curriculum this year. Auckland Primary Principals Association president Lucy Naylor said families should regard the mid-year reports as setting a new baseline for their children's achievement against the new curriculum. "We're no longer reporting against the old curriculum. So there might be a shift for parents, it's a new curriculum, it's a tighter curriculum," she said. "What parents might see is variation. So where a child might have been proficient against the old curriculum there might be a little bit of a change to that because we have more indicators within the new curriculum to report against." However, Naylor said this year was a transition year for introducing the new curriculums and schools would be at different stages of readiness to report on children's progress. Dunedin North Intermediate principal Heidi Hayward said it was too early to know if fewer children were meeting the new maths requirements. "Schools are really just scratching the surface in understanding the new maths curriculum so I think it's imprudent to try and report against a curriculum that schools have actually not had enough time to learn and use properly," she said. "We'll be taking a very cautious approach to reporting." Hayward said teachers would rely heavily on test results this year, but needed to use their overall judgement when deciding how well their pupils' were doing. She said reports should ideally show parents how well children were achieving against expectations for their age group, and how much progress they had made. "As a parent what I really want to know is has my child made progress and where do they sit in relation to the expectation for age and they're two quite different things," she said. She said it was important to know whether high-achievers had improved or progressed much during the year, and also whether pupils performing below expectations had made progress in catching up to their peers. Hayward said the ministry's proposed descriptors would not provide that information and her school would this year use its old reporting templates. The principal of Douglas Park School in Masterton, Gareth Sinton, said his school's mid-year reports would not use the ministry's proposed terminology because there was not enough detail to help schools decide which of the four descriptors to use. "If I pick Year 6 writing, there are 53 what they call sequence statements, so 53 skills that the kids are expected to be taught and pick up across their Year 6 year in writing. So to be proficient it says you need to be meeting the expectations. It doesn't say if you need to have all of those, all 53. If you need to have 90 percent of those, 80 percent of those, 75 percent... So the descriptor is so vague that we don't feel confident enough yet to make a judgement against this new curriculum," he said. Sinton said greater national consistency was possible, but currently different schools had different ideas about where the cut-off points lay for each level of achievement. For example, one of his staff was talking with staff from five other schools about the curriculum expectations and all five had different ideas about where the cut-off points should be drawn. "All five schools had different thoughts. So if you translate that across the whole system of 2000 primary schools, there's an issue and it's not even an issue on the horizon, it's an issue right here in front of us," he said. Sinton said his teachers would explain to parents in mid-year reports what their children could do in maths and English, but would not make an overall judgement about their performance. The Education Ministry said the new curriculums had a different approach to learning and school leaders and teachers had asked for clarity on how they should assess and report student progress and achievement against the new curriculum. "Progress descriptors provide consistent language for how each child's progress is tracking against the new curriculum expectations. The descriptors are in draft and we're consulting on these until 30 June," it said. "National consistency in how progress is assessed and described will support teachers to meet students' needs and support a common understanding of when additional support or extension needs to be considered. It will also support continuity in teaching, learning and support as students move to the next year level or school." The ministry said national consistency would ensure parents would not have to interpret different approaches for describing how their children were doing as they moved to the next year level or school. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Irish Times
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Keeping proper tabs on school attendance is the first step in protecting our most vulnerable children
'Children don't drop out of school, they fade out,' a district inspector informed a group of inner-city principals at a planning day last year. Poor school attendance is linked to a multitude of negative outcomes, including early school leaving, yet it has never received the requisite political prioritisation until now. Such is the lack of regard for the issue that responsibility for school attendance has been bounced back and forth between the Department of Education and the Department of Children. Back in Education now, it affords the new Minister for Education, Helen McEntee , the opportunity to make the significant changes necessary to send a clear message that every school day matters. School attendance is at crisis levels, particularly in DEIS primary schools where a staggering 43 per cent of children missed 20 days or more in 2022-2023, according to the ESRI . While the pandemic was a watershed and school attendance rates declined sharply afterwards, educators had noticed a deterioration for some time before this. As principal of a DEIS primary school, the impact of non-attendance is evident across multiple aspects of a child's education. A brief analysis of reading groups in a middle primary class in the school last year indicated each of the children in the lowest reading group was a poor attender year on year. READ MORE Significantly, children internalise this perceived weakness and accept that they are 'not good at reading'. In reality, they missed out on being taught basic literacy skills. Not only are academic possibilities undermined, but a child's self-esteem and belief in their ability is compromised too. The cumulative impact of poor attendance is significant. The Oireachtas committee on Education was informed in 2022 that 70 per cent of people in Irish prisons had left school by age 14 Schools do much to incentivise positive attendance but there needs to be a stronger response from a statutory level. Early intervention is key, yet children under the age of six are currently exempt from the Education (Welfare) Act 2000, meaning the school attendance of many junior infant children in the State is not being officially tracked. Minister McEntee is planning to rectify this by amending the legislation. Irrespective of age, any child who formally begins school must be included in its remit. An additional measure which would make a difference is 'carrying over' days into the following school year, so children with poor attendance are placed on an alert list and intervention happens sooner. Speaking to a post-primary principal colleague recently, I was saddened but not surprised to hear some former pupils are struggling. The pupils in question missed more than 20 days of school every year from junior infants to sixth class. A close look at poor school attendance of vulnerable children usually indicates an erratic pattern of days missed here and there, which is detrimental. A child's education becomes like a block of Swiss cheese; the gaps are too many and eventually too large to overcome. By senior primary, disengagement starts. This is entirely predictable, incredibly frustrating for school staff who work with children and it significantly increases the risk of early school leaving for a child. Indeed, teachers can identify at a young age which children are likely to drop out of school. The Oireachtas committee on Education was informed in 2022 that 70 per cent of people in Irish prisons had left school by age 14. Aside from the academic impact of missing school on literacy and numeracy attainment, there is an enormous social ramification for children with poor attendance. Such children tend to have less friends and poorer social connections as they are missing out on what's happening among their classmates. In the era of disintegrating social connections among children owing to the rise in mobile phone use, this particular consequence warrants attention, as it correlates with poor mental health. [ Leaving Cert parent: It is cruel and unusual punishment - but sometimes you have to laugh Opens in new window ] [ Schools told they cannot spend €9m phone pouch budget on other education needs Opens in new window ] There is a strong correlation between poor school attendance and child protection. Random days missed sporadically can be an indicator that there are difficulties at home - a parent may be caught in addiction or experiencing mental health difficulties. In their observations after the lengthy pandemic school closures, the Child Law Project recognised the importance of schools in having eyes on vulnerable children. They 'provide a vital link between children and social services as children may confide in teachers or teachers may notice a child is showing signs of abuse". Poor school attendance undermines the ability of an important adult in a child's life to keep an eye and flag any concerns. If they move, we need to know where they go Serious questions about school attendance and the inter-school transfer procedures were asked in light of the disappearance of Kyran Durnin , a schoolboy from Co Louth who was last seen in 2022, when he was six. These questions need to be answered as a matter of urgency to avoid a similar situation happening in future. Currently, there are children living in homeless accommodation, many of whom are from ethnic minority communities, who are not attending school. Unless a school referral has been made, education welfare officers cannot call to check who is living in the accommodation and whether the children are registered for and attending school. Thus, children can arrive to live in Ireland but there is no follow-up system to ensure they are attending school. This is a serious anomaly, which, at its most alarming, means child trafficking is possible in the State. It is imperative that Ireland has a robust, integrated system to ensure all children are safe and protected. Put simply, we need to know that children are registered for and attending school. If they move, we need to know where they go. As our history has taught us, we need to prioritise children who are at risk. Children First legislation should trump all other, including GDPR, which can present a challenge to sharing important information. A system which links PPS numbers, passport numbers and school attendance is needed to ensure that Ireland protects its most vulnerable children - those who may fall through the cracks. A new approach to school attendance is a first step. Niamh Murray is principal of Rutland National School, Dublin 1.
ABC News
03-06-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Victorian principals given the power to expel students for behaviour outside school
Victorian school principals will have greater powers to suspend or expel students for misbehaviour outside of school or online from next term. The Victorian government has revealed changes that allow students to be suspended or expelled if their behaviour outside of school or online puts fellow students or staff at serious risk. Currently, those powers are restricted to responding to behaviour on school grounds. The government said the change brings Victoria in line with New South Wales and South Australia, and will take effect from the first day of term 3, 2025. Education Minister Ben Carroll said the move was in response to an increase in assaults and online bullying, including the use of AI deepfake images. "In Victoria, community safety comes first. These strengthened powers send a clear message that harmful behaviour outside of school or online has consequences," Mr Carroll said. "The safety of students, teachers and school staff is our top priority — we're investing in programs that foster more respectful schools and acting to protect school communities. Mr Carroll said it would be up to principals to decide how and when to use the new powers. "This is a measure we're putting in as a last resort," he said. "I've met with families and principals where incidents have occurred online, have been incredibly harmful and because it happened outside the school gate, the principal hasn't had the appropriate authority."
