Mayo candidate Daly wants rethink on education 'nightmare'

More than 30,000 members of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland and the Teacher’s Union of Ireland will hold a nationwide lunchtime protest next Tuesday, November 19, outside schools in an effort to seek a delay to the implementation of senior cycle redevelopment plans.

The People Before Profit Candidate for the Mayo constituency, Castlebar based secondary teacher Joe Daly, stated: “It seems like groundhog day with senior cycle change where the same mistakes made during the junior cycle reform are being made all over again.

“As an ASTI member myself for the past 17 years, an elected school steward, an elected delegate to the central executive council and a teacher of senior and junior cycle science subjects, I can tell the public that the general consensus amongst teachers is that this whole process has been a complete and utter farce and if it proceeds at the accelerated pace planned it will be a disaster for students not to mention a nightmare for teachers and parents.

“We have a complete lack of depth of treatment in syllabi, no teacher guidelines produced, no sample examination papers or marking schemes prepared and no rationale or research based evidence laid out to underpin the changes taking place.

“There are also concerns relating to the equitable implementation of changes whereby access to facilities and resources will inhibit schools serving disadvantaged areas and where private schools will be able to gain further advantage over public schools

“It seems that Minister Foley was blindly following the failed logic of the new junior cycle when she unilaterally announced senior cycle reform in the spring of 2023 without agreement of teachers unions.

"The next Minister for Education must postpone the implementation of the senior cycle redevelopment until the serious concerns of teachers are addressed in full.

“As a candidate in the general election I am calling on the public to get behind teachers as they struggle to defend the educational system from further dumbing down and underinvestment by successive governments."