Irish Examiner view: Rights of school secretaries and caretakers must be recognised
Secretaries and caretakers are working alongside teachers and special needs assistants in schools who have access to public service pensions. Picture: Sam Boal
The return to school season is well and truly under way now, with some schools in full operational mode already and others close to reopening.
On Thursday, however, schools are facing industrial action on a vast scale.
A strike is due to begin involving more than 2,600 secretaries and caretakers at schools across the country.
These workers are represented by the trade union Fórsa, which says this large-scale action is necessary because the workers are being denied public sector pensions and other entitlements.
This has led to allegations that the education system is now operating on two different tiers, because those secretaries and caretakers are working alongside teachers and special needs assistants in schools who have access to public service pensions.
The Department of Education and Youth has defended itself vigorously, saying it recognises the important role of secretaries and caretakers within schools and claiming that in recent years it has made progress in improving the terms and conditions of those workers.
The two sides in this dispute met for talks at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on Wednesday, but those talks broke down without a resolution.
Our education system has long been celebrated — for creating a well-educated population at home and for producing the skilled educators which Ireland has sent all over the world, not to mention other significant achievements such as the highly-educated workforce which has proven so attractive to foreign direct investment for decades.
Yet, here is a clear inequity which has not been addressed.
Secretaries and caretakers are a vital part of these school communities and have made a significant contribution to the success of our education system.
The department may pay lip service to their work by saying it recognises their importance, but that should be matched by concrete action.
The industrial action planned for Thursday should not be necessary. It would be far better if these workers’ requests were recognised and addressed with generosity.
Thursday was one of those fraught days in the calendar of many a teenager, with the Central Applications Office (CAO) offering thousands of college places.
Already there is some clarity on the first round of offers.
As reported here, points are up in almost half of all degree courses.
Almost 50% of students have missed out on their first choice of degree course following the first round of CAO offers.
Data released by the CAO on Wednesday shows that entry to 25 courses has been determined by random selection, which means that some students will miss out on their top choice of college course this year despite receiving the maximum grades available.
This will be bitterly disappointing news for those students, who can legitimately claim they can do no more to secure their place in their favoured course.
In a general sense, it may well reawaken a hardy annual debate topic — whether this is the best system for allocating college places.
Based as it is on results in the Leaving Certificate — itself a frequent target of criticism on the basis of its perceived limitations — the CAO system has its critics, and the cases involving random selection cited above will no doubt give those critics ammunition.
The alternative view is that anonymised tests such as the Leaving Certificate rule out the possibilities of abuse or bias, with the CAO system benefiting in a similar way from the strict focus on grades and points.
This appears to be the least biased system available and thus deserves to continue, scant consolation though that might be for the student missing out on a cherished college course because of bad luck in a lottery for places.
It should also be noted that there is a far wider context to the CAO offers, even if those are headline news today.
Last week, new Rose of Tralee Katelyn Cummins — an apprentice electrician — pointed out that women didn’t "need to follow tradition by going to college or anything like that".
Hers was a timely reminder that perspective can be invaluable when weighing up one’s options.
Engagement was the word and engagement was the theme when news broke about Taylor Swift’s future plans.
A social media post of the singer and her boyfriend Travis Kelce was captioned: “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.”
It duly led to the very definition of a post going viral.
At the time of writing, the post had racked up a colossal 30m likes on Instagram alone.
Swift’s popularity is proverbial.
She ended her Eras tour in December 2024 after almost two years on the road, a marathon series of gigs which grossed approximately €2.08bn, making it the highest-grossing tour of all time.
As part of that tour, she sold out the Aviva Stadium for three nights last year — playing to more than 150,000 people — with Kelce, an American football star with the Kansas City Chiefs and famous in America in his own right, in the stadium for the last show.
She releases a new album in just a few weeks’ time — , her twelfth, is due out on October 3 — and this week’s news is likely to drive even more interest in that release.
Another artist might be accused of cynicism in announcing their engagement ahead of a new album, but when Swift’s last tour grossed over €2bn, that charge hardly applies here.
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