Irish Teacher: Spats between unions and Government affect quality of education in Ireland

Jennifer Horgan says the argument over continuous assessment has a lot to do with poor communication and deep mistrust between the interested parties

I enjoyed a conversation this week between Dr Jane Mulcahy and educator Gerry Diamond as part of her Relationships Matter interviews. During the chat they discussed how relationships come before everything because they affect everything.

Up until this week, I hadn’t thought about bigger relationships this way — the relationships that make up our systems and determine policy. But the relationship between teachers’ unions and the Government is affecting me, my students, and the quality of education in Ireland. It’s broken, and the toxicity of the split, the parting of ways, pervades the profession.