The new Junior Cert Cycle.
It’s going to get very ASTI.
Seamus Keane writes:
I appreciate that you don’t normally do this but I’m one of a group of activist teachers in the ASTI union, we call ourselves ASTI Fightback. We’ve long campaigned against the cuts in education, class sizes etc., often clashing with our own unelected officials who we think have been compromised by years of Social Partnership and feel more at home in Government buildings with their peers than in the classroom with ordinary teachers.
We normally agitate for change within our own union and in conjunction with our sister unions but feel that recent developments in education necessitate bringing our concerns to a wider audience while trying to raise funds to aid our campaign.
Our members will be voting on the new Junior Cycle in a few weeks and we feel that this path the mandarins & bureaucrats in Government wish to lead us down is precisely the one that has ruined the education system in the UK, i.e. an outcomes-based curricular model promoting an instrumental, tick-box approach to the curriculum.
Their ultimate aim is the commodification of education where schools will be in competition with each other once league tables are published (the stated aim of Harold Hislop Chief Inspector Department of Education & Skills).
This will ultimately be achieved by doing away with the anonymous, number only exam marked by the State Examination Commission (flawed, yes but incorruptible in the sense that no one can corruptly bring influence to bear on the mark their son/daughter/nephew etc. will achieve).
If we accept this it means that soon schools will assess their own students for the purpose of certification which opens the door to pressure from parents & management for the best results possible. This system has been manipulated in the UK by school managers to corruptly facilitate their climb up the school league tables, a practice that has been exposed by the ITV ‘Exposure’ programme:
We are currently engaged in producing a document highlighting the failings of this system to post to every secondary school in Ireland (700). It is a costly endeavour (stamps alone will cost €476) I was hoping you might post the link to our crowdfunding page [below] – Please also feel free to look at our Facebook page: ASTI Fightback to see what we’re all about…
*Flings duster*
New Junior Cycle Campaign (iCrowdfund.ie)
