05.07.06
Hanafin’s facts make me sick to my stomach
The comedian Stephen Colbert ridiculed George Bush last week, saying the American president believes things to be true because he feels them in his gut. Bush doesn’t care what the “factanistas” who read “elitist” books have to say. If he believes something in his gut (like there being WMD in Iraq), he will cling to that belief regardless of the facts.Sometimes I find myself in the same position. Experts give me “facts”, but I feel in my gut that they aren’t true. It happened last year when I heard Mary Hanafin, the education minister, talking about a new “standardisation” plan to put extra teachers in disadvantaged schools. It sounded perfect, but my gut felt queasy.My gut may be so twisted that it can’t listen to anyone from Fianna Fail without going into convulsions. Nevertheless, Hanafin’s “facts” seemed incontrovertible.
Then, a fortnight ago, St Michael’s CBS primary school in Inchicore, Dublin, announced that it was closing and the minister’s standardisation chickens came home to roost.
Hanafin’s big idea was to deliver equality of opportunity in schools — the so-called DEIS scheme. This was a plan to set the maximum class size in 32 disadvantaged schools at a ratio of 15 pupils per teacher for junior classes and 27:1 for seniors. In a further 211 schools, the maximum class size for juniors would be 20:1 and for seniors 27:1.
If your son or daughter is in a class of between 30 and 40, 20:1 probably sounds like magic and 15:1 would be an educational nirvana. But if you’re reading this article, I’m assuming you’re middle class. At worst you’re one of the “coping classes” — the demographic first identified by Eoghan Harris when he was advising John Bruton.
As a “coping” mother or father, you send your child to a class of 40 with a decent breakfast and lunch in their schoolbag. You collect them from school and give them dinner. They may loll idly in front of Playstation or watch too much telly, but at last you harass them into doing their homework before persuading them to go bed. Begrudgingly you hand over €5 every so often for the raffle tickets sent home for a draw to raise funds for new computers. It’s all hassle, but still you’re coping.
It’s hard to describe how dire things are for the non-coping classes. A friend with no teaching qualification got a job in an inner-city project for primary school children thrown out of every other school. Since nobody else wanted the job, she found herself in front of a class of six to 10 severely disadvantaged children with phenomenal problems.
One 10-year-old boy explained he wouldn’t be able to go to school the next day, even though daily attendance was part of his probation agreement. Child benefit payments were due and he had to go shopping with his mother for his younger sister’s communion dress. The mother was a heroin addict and if he didn’t go with her she’d buy drugs instead of the dress.
When school finished in the afternoons, my friend would try to keep the pupils back long enough for the drug dealers at the gates to get bored and go home. She was sure most of the children were hungry. They had few books and the 12-year-olds couldn’t even read. She tried teaching them from the tabloid newspapers. They were interested in Wayne Rooney, so that held their attention.
Eventually there was a dispute over funding and her hours were cut back and then axed.
St Michael’s announced closure because, under the new “standardisation” scheme, it was going to lose teachers. The school currently has eight, one for every eight pupils, but was about to lose half of them, bringing the ratio up to one for every 16.
A lot of St Michael’s pupils are the ones other schools have turned away because of disruptive histories, learning difficulties and special needs. St Michael’s needed every last one of those teachers to have any chance of success.
According to last Thursday’s Morning Ireland programme, Hanafin was “very annoyed” with the school for its “lack of consultation” about the closure. She was probably also annoyed that the scheme was so clearly exposed for making things worse. Now she’s thrown the school a lifeline; they can keep their staff for one more year. That should give the pupils enough time to find another school with 30-something other classmates where they can get sucked into the factanista’s claim that pupil-teacher ratios are being reduced.
It’s so depressing that we still can’t get the Department of Education to accept the importance of tackling social deprivation in primary school. One to 20 is a useless ratio when you are dealing with problem children; one to 27 is disastrous. Even from an economic viewpoint we should be able to persuade the wretched Department of Finance that throwing bucket loads of money at primary schools would save us a fortune in the long run.
I was bitterly disappointed when Niamh Breathnach, as minister for education, abolished third-level fees in the 1990s. It just meant that the middle classes on Dublin’s southside got to go to UCD for free, and paid for posh secondary schools instead. It did nothing for rural students, who still face high rents in cities, and it sure didn’t help one single disadvantaged pupil get into college.By the time it gets to third level, it’s too late. By the time it gets to second level, it’s too late. The only hope is to get the disadvantaged children when they are four, or even three.I would like to see a reintroduction of third-level fees, on condition that the €50m or so raised would go to the most severely disadvantaged schools in the country. Imagine what that money could do? A hot breakfast, a dinner, classroom assistants, homework clubs. You could transform an entire generation in a poor locality.
But ministers will tell you “it doesn’t work like that” and you can’t just go taking money from one crowd and giving it to another. Weird, I thought redistributing wealth was exactly what governments and taxation systems were supposed to do.
Of course it won’t happen because other unpalatable facts are in the way. The coping classes are bigger than the non-coping classes, and they vote more. The “factanistas” know that there are more votes in free third-level education than in doing something truly visionary for the disadvantaged.
It’s these kind of facts that make my gut feel so queasy again.
simon said,
May 7, 2006 at 9:14 pm
I disagree with the removal of free fee’s.
I worte about here.
http://dossing.blogspot.com/2005/11/third-level-fees.html
ben said,
May 8, 2006 at 2:42 am
I don’t see any offensive “facts” claimed by Hanafin. When proposing a complex scheme like standardisation, it’s easy after the fact to point to one school of your acquaintance where this resulted in a decrease in staff ratios and, thus, disaster, but it seems like the overall idea has merit (as you admit).
I can’t begin to fathom the logic by which free fees, a purely educational benefit in kind for the use of all of the nation’s citizens, are bad, but a no-questions-asked grand-a-year headage payment for children is good. That doesn’t make any sense.
The idea that free fees have done ‘nothing’ for rural students is absurd. They still have high rents in the city? Yeah, but they save a hell of a lot of money on fees. What do you want? Free fees *plus* increased rent subsidy? Or rent subsidy and no free fees? Or … what?
The assertion ‘it sure didn’t help one single disadvantaged pupil get into college’ requires some supporting evidence at the very least. There were never, ever, any students for whom the imposition of fees put thoughts of a higher education beyond reach? Never? Not a single one?
As to why it *must* be free third-level fees that have to go in order to improve the funding of primary schools, I don’t follow. Is that the only source of funding available? No other cuts in spending or increases in revenue that can be made at all?
“But ministers will tell you “it doesn’t work like that” and you can’t just go taking money from one crowd and giving it to another. Weird, I thought …”
I thought that was a lovely straw man, there. I think most ministers are fully aware that there is an opportunity cost associated with every decision and would love to hear which minister said that the transfer you propose is literally impossible and can’t be done.
tom said,
May 8, 2006 at 10:08 am
I think you are being optomistic Sarah. if a child is going home to a heroin addict it really doesn’t matter how much money you put into the school.
Schools are for education. If the government is going to take responsibility for feeding and raising these children it should do so in a transparent way and take them off the parents, give them to other parents, or at least insist that the parents and children live in a closely monitored environment in which all government benefits are used directly to improve child welfare.
Karen said,
May 8, 2006 at 10:19 am
I’m from a disadvantaged area of Dublin, there was unemployment in our house for many many years. I went to college after the fees were abolished and I know for sure I wouldn’t have been able to go if there had been thousands to stump up. So..I guess I disprove your theory that abolishing fees didn’t help one single disadvantaged student. Cos it helped me!
Daniel K. said,
May 8, 2006 at 11:20 am
Karen, if you are really from a disadvantaged background yourself then you wouldn’t have to pay fees under the old system either. Now, being from a disadvantaged background does imply your own family was disadvantaged not that you are child of a middle class professional like a doctor who happened to operate in a disadvantaged area.
The fact that someone made it through college and has an opinion on this issue without knowing the facts about the old system is somewhat shocking. After all it was only changed about ten years ago.
Justin said,
May 8, 2006 at 12:11 pm
‘if you are really from a disadvantaged background yourself then you wouldn’t have to pay fees under the old system either.’
A fine generalisation. I personally know someone who received a grant which was then withdrawn from the second year on, for seemingly-spurious reasons, causing much heartache; she very nearly had to withdraw from her university career as a result. The grant system was far from usable or effective.
simon said,
May 8, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Daniel K remember it is ten years ago. People leaving collage this year could have been 11 when fee’s were their. I don’t know about you but I don’t know any 11 year ols that know much about the college fee system
Sarah said,
May 8, 2006 at 2:25 pm
A couple of things. Firstly, Simon, on that comment and on your own post on the subject you are consistently mis-spelling college. I don’t like being too snooty since my typing worsens by the day and my grammar grows increasingly creative- but c’mon!
On 3rd level fees I thought what should have been done was that fees were retained but the grant system totally overhauled. Firstly, the income threshold to obtain a grant could have been raised substantially and secondly, the amount of the maintenance element should have been increased. In the old days, you could get a grant if you were broke but the amount you got was so abysmal it didn’t really help much ESPECIALLY if you had to pay out rent etc. The notion of millionaires paying fees for secondary schools and not having to pay fees for university is LUDRICOUS.
On Tom’s point. You are being very harsh. Yes, schools are for education but you can’t teach hungry pupils. And I won’t apologise for wanting to harness the reach of the local primary school as a means of tackling disadvantage. The location of your birth dictates your path in life (as John Lonergan of Mountjoy always says – he can tell by the addresses of the babies born in the Rotunda which ones he’ll be seeing in 18 years). We are two generations removed from the peasant class that got an education beaten into them by the Christian Brothers and went to Dublin, got jobs in the civil service or emigrated and the rest is history. If you really want to effect social change the schools are the cheapest and most effective way of doing it. Rounding up the children of the poor and taking them into care is very expensive, ineffective and creates more trauma. Put the money into specific schools in disadantaged areas now and save on the prison budget in the future. Anyone who works in the poverty area will testify to that.
eoin said,
May 8, 2006 at 6:18 pm
Well said Sarah,
It infuriates me when I hear about students embarking on another yet another modish and futile crusade like banning Coke from campuses (the official term for this is “slacktivism”) while the gross social injustice of not making the payment of fees subject to a means test is actively supported. Here’s a quote from the USI policy document:
Congress mandates:
The Education Officer and President to engage and liase with the National Access Office to ensure that a reintroduction of Third Level fees is not carried out in the name of access.
And from Labour Youth:
Labour Youth believes that core to the right to education is the continuing need to totally and unequivocally oppose the re-introduction of third level fees
How on earth is it unchallenged that parents who can well afford it don’t contribute a penny towards our underfunded universities while stuffing the pockets of grind school millionaires? The Irish Times list of feeder schools for UCD, TCD and DCU tells its own story; out of the top ten nine are fee paying with the Institute of Education the runaway leader. Third level participation rates may have risen compared to the pre 1995 situation but there is no doubt that free fees is a misallocation of resources which disproportionately benefits the already wealthy middle classes and which is maintained for political advantage.
We should make the rich pay and put the money raised directly into increasing the grant to something approaching common sense. How anyone is meant to survive on 3020 a year in Dublin is beyond me.
Daniel K. said,
May 8, 2006 at 7:37 pm
simon said, May 8, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Daniel K remember it is ten years ago. People leaving collage this year could have been 11 when fee’s were their. I don’t know about you but I don’t know any 11 year ols that know much about the college fee system
Simon, Karen didn’t indicate that she was leaving college this year, just she had gone after the fee system was abolished. And it’s not that hard if she is going to have an opinion on the issue now to dig up some basic information. After all, we still have plenty who will tell you the rights and wrongs of the Vietnam war and the impact of the Tet offensive despite being born long after Saigon fell.
Justin, did they lose the entire grant or just the fee element because if it was the entire thing then the existence of fees was only half the problem. And I think you can’t just refer to ’seemingly-spurious reasons’ and leave it at that.
I’m not for one moment suggesting that the maintenance grant was or is now by any stretch sufficient. For the record, I got a grant and didn’t pay fees. My old man was a council worker. Fact is if we had a mortgage to pay at the time (my folks had the house clear at that time) I’m not sure how they could have afforded it. And we certainly couldn’t have afforded for both myself and my sister to go at the same time even with the grant for both.
I would favour giving fulltime students the same maintenane as the dole(and it would be cheaper to administrate, and have fees with interest free loans which are only payable when your income exceeds a certain amount. Much like the Aussie system.
Conor Delaney said,
May 8, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Don’t forget the government pays the wages of the teachers in the fee paying secondary schools…a double subsity for the rich?
Elizabeth said,
May 9, 2006 at 12:01 am
Sarah
I don’t wish to be pedantic, but you can’t correct Simon’s spelling of “college” and then in the same post spell “ludicrous” as “LUDRICOUS”! And, while I’m at it, “misspelling” doesn’t have a hyphen. Having said that, I agree wholeheartedly with your argument.
Ray said,
May 9, 2006 at 10:09 am
One reason why USI was in favour of abolishing fees is that its a clean and easy line in the sand to point to. It may not be the most efficient way of increasing access, but its much easier to fight that battle than to fight every year for the level of grants, and the qualifying threshold for grants, to be increased. And now that fees have been abolished, it’s very difficult for governments to reintroduce them, whereas it would have been easy for the government ten years ago to have increased the grant levels and thresholds substantially, and for subsequent governments to have allowed those increases to be swallowed up by inflation.
There is absolutely no reason why increases in grants today have to be made up by the return of fees. If you’re worried about the rich benefitting disproportionately from the lack of fees, then raise their income tax to compensate. Why the obsession with paying for services at the point of delivery? Isn’t that the PD ideal, after all, charge people for services, but reduce income taxes – reduce progressive taxes and increase regressive taxes, in other words?
tom said,
May 9, 2006 at 10:17 am
Ray, I agree with your general comments about the move from progressive to regressive taxation, but “free fees” was a simple bribe to the middle classes, and it IS true that it did little to improve access to third level education. Sarah is right to say that the problems start much earlier, and if we have to choose where to spend the money, I would agree with her that it is better spent at primary level.
BTW Sarah I wasn’t suggesting we remove children from “the poor”, I was suggesting we remove them from fuck-ups who are incapable of looking after them. If a kid is going home to babysit a parent on heroin, or one who is drinking the family income rather than putting food on the table, let’s call that situation what it is: child abuse. By all means help the parent get back on track but the first priority should be child welfare.
Lastly, the St. Michael’s issue YET AGAIN underlines the absurdity of unaccountable religious groups controlling public money and educating our children.
Sarah said,
May 9, 2006 at 10:34 am
Elizabeth, damn damn damn. I knew as soon as I corrected Simon I’d make a mistake of my own. Still, I allow for typos, but his mis (-) spelling was so consistent I thought he might have thought that’s how you actually spell it.
Tom , I did notice that the CB’s came under attack since they could make a decision without reference to the government. I’d make two points about that. Firstly I do sympathise with your general point about religious control of primary schools. It is crazy and I don’t like it. Particularly in the country I have no way of protecting my children from learning about sin and confession when they are 6. However I will say this. It has been very convenient for the government to dump education and health care onto the religious for almost the entire history of the state. The fact is that the Catholics invested in both these areas when the State had neither the money nor the inclination to do so. For example, much is made of the disastrous deal which Michael Woods made with the churches whereby their liability for law suits over the industrial schools was limited to €120 m or something. But the state dumped all those children on the religious communities. In one specific case I read about a priest met with the secretary of the Department of Education sometime in the 1950’s and expressed serious concern, not about sexual abuse, but malnutrition, deprivation and corporal punishment. The state did nothing because they couldn’t be bothered. So while the religious are guilty of a lot – they were given free reign by the State.
Do you think for one second that the government would say to the church now, ok we’ll buy all the schools from you? No way. They are quite happy to reap the benefits of the investment made by churches and communities into primary schools (sure half the time the parents themselves raised the money to build the schools or buy the land) and the bitch about “lack of consultation” when the schools do something they don’t like.
Ray said,
May 9, 2006 at 10:38 am
I agree on the general point – spending money at primary level is much more effective than spending it at third level. But it’s hardly an either/or situation, and anyone who would believe “Right, we’re going to reintroduce third-level fees, but every penny of that new income will be extra funding for primary schools” is in need of remedial education.
Elizabeth said,
May 9, 2006 at 11:56 am
Sorry for the pedantry, Sarah, I was having a moment of crankiness.
You are right that third level fees should be reintroduced along with an overhauled grant system. Many of those in my class in Trinity who were in receipt of a grant attended fee paying secondary schools. The flaw in the grant system was that it was means tested on the basis of income rather than wealth, which meant that some children of asset rich farmers, for example, qualified for a grant while the children of middle to low income PAYE workers often did not. The income thresholds should be raised and assets (other than the family home) should be taken into account.
simon said,
May 9, 2006 at 12:14 pm
A couple of things. Firstly, Simon, on that comment and on your own post on the subject you are consistently mis-spelling college. I don’t like being too snooty since my typing worsens by the day and my grammar grows increasingly creative- but c’mon!
Sorry I am dislexic and my word proccessor doesn’t pick up everything. But I do try sorry for offending your spelling sensabilities.
Daniel K. said,
May 9, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Elizabeth, part of the problem with the farmers is that their assest is also how they earn their living. Selling part of the farm to fund their child’s education is like telling an accountant to sell a finger.
Blankpaige said,
May 9, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Interesting discussion. I agree that the re-introduction of fees is sensible and doesn’t have to mean denial of access for disadvantage.
Simon, I’m really sorry that you are ‘dislexic’. I just can’t spell dyslexia.
Ray said,
May 9, 2006 at 1:44 pm
The reintroduction of fees is only sensible if you know that the money recouped there will be spent on increasing access to education in some better way. Do you know that?
Gerry said,
May 9, 2006 at 2:37 pm
I can see the argument for the reintroduction of fees but my experience of them, and to borrow from Sarah’s disdain for the factinistas, was that my parents were in the classic PAYE bind. It was a stuggle along with everything else to pay the fees. and had my brothers and sisters been of college going age when I was then there would have been some difficult decisions.
Also, I know that many people where I grew up in Santry avoided trinity and ucd directly becasue of the cost of the fees, preferring to go to more vocational and cheaper third level institutions (as well as the social exclusion element, full of snobs etc). Whether these numbers have changed since i don’t know.
Given the relatively low tax yield, the message it sends out (that these are institutions of privilege), the relatively minor contrribution the fees make to the costs of running colleges, and the unlilkelihood of the money directly going to benefit access then I guess we had better keep fees banned.
tom said,
May 9, 2006 at 4:39 pm
“Elizabeth, part of the problem with the farmers is that their assest is also how they earn their living. Selling part of the farm to fund their child’s education is like telling an accountant to sell a finger.”
Farmers are always coming out with this line, I would respect it corresponded to reality in any way shape or form. As it is the huge numbers of one-off houses suggest that farmers are more than happy to earn a bit of cash by selling building plots – or helping their families by ‘donating’ them. (Yes Sarah I am talking about YOU – it’s ALL your fault.
The only answer is to nationalise the land and pay farmers to act as custodians. They can’t have it both ways – sitting on a huge asset whilst bleeding the taxpayer dry.
simon said,
May 9, 2006 at 5:47 pm
The only answer is to nationalise the land and pay farmers to act as custodians.
Yes because iit worked so well for stalin.
Whatever grant system is brought in someone on the threshold of the margins will suffer. As you said the top feeder schools are the big schools. Why becuase they are the bext schools. The points system and free fees is utterly fair if the primary and secondary school system is good.
Karen said,
May 9, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Daniel K (who appears to have some massive chip on his shoulder about me for some unknown reason)
I’m not the daughter of a middle class professional by any means and yes I am “really” disadvantaged. From a working class suburb, father unemployed, mother working in an unskilled job.. When my brother and sisters were attempting to get into third level, fees were still in existence under the old system, but because my mother worked, they didn’t qualify for a grant, they exceeded the income threshhold. So none of them went to university at that time, as despite my mother working, there wasn’t enough money to send them. We were caught between a rock and a hard place in that the income level for the house exceeded the threshold, but there wasn’t enough for us to pay. (And no I don’t remember how much she was earning or what exactly the limits where, it was 10 years ago).
When it was my turn, just after the fees were abolished 10 years ago, I was able to go without the same financial hardship. I too would have exceeded the old income threshold. I don’t know why you’re trying to pick a fight with me, I’m simply saying that Sarah, in her original post, said she doesn’t believe abolishing fees helped any disadvantaged students to get to college and I said that the abolition helped me.
As for your totally irrelevant comment that I’m somehow not allowed to have an opinion on this subject because I don’t know the ins and outs of the old system – pah, get over yourself, we live in a free country, I can have an opinion about anything I like. I know enough. I know that when fees were there, my brother and sisters couldn’t go to college, but when they were removed, I could. QED.
Sarah said,
May 9, 2006 at 7:14 pm
Enough with the farmer bashing….. I can’t remember the exact figures but something like at least 1/3 of farmers live below the poverty line. The old 80/20 rule applied to EU grants – 20% of the farmers got 80% of the grants. There were always big guys at the top and thousands of small farmers scraping by. But what country people did retain was the zeal to educate not necessarily present in the urban working classes. Which might account for the traditional over representation of farmers in the grant statistics. Btw, income for grant purposes was assessed in an entirely different way than income tax. Assets were counted as income. For example, my parents had a shop. The entire stock of the shop was counted as income, regardless of whether or not they sold anything. So too was land. It didn’t matter if you were making 6k a year (which I think my Dad told me was the income from our land on an annual basis in the 80′S).
Don’t any of you feel even remotely lucky to have great meat in your butchers?? You might change your tune if all the little farmers DID sell their farms and we got huge ranch-style farms like continental Europe or America with no hedgerows (no birds, no wildlife, no wild flowers) and fattened our cows on steroids instead of great Irish grass.
Then think about the knock-on effect on small villages who lose population and then post-offices, bank branches etc. We might even lose a few tourists, cos let’s face it, they were never coming for the weather anyway. And our pretty Irish landscape would disappear….
Right – farmer rant over from the one-off house on the site in the corner of my Dad’s field (HAHAHAHAHAHA).
Daniel K. said,
May 9, 2006 at 8:18 pm
Karen, I made one comment referring to your comment. That’s hardly a chip. It is not even a crsipy bit at the end.
The income limits for grants and fee were much too low and took no account as someone has pointed out already of having more than one child in college at the same time.
What is somewhat odd that is you refer to your brothers/sisters not qualifying for the grant rather than the fees option. The old system had differing thresholds for the maintenance grant and for the fees. I would be grateful if someone has the exact figures but from my recollection in the late 80s for the full maintenance grant you had to be under about 12K, and the fees it was something like 18K. In punts.
It is kind of hard to discuss this as you appear to either not have any facts to hand, or to be unwilling to refer to them. As for it being ten years ago, most people tend to be able to remember their leaving cert results and various other aspects of their time in college.
It sounds more like having appropriate income thresholds would have made more sense and would have dealt with the situation you found yourself in rather than abolishing all fees for everyone
As for your last comment, I said “The fact that someone made it through college and has an opinion on this issue without knowing the facts about the old system is somewhat shocking. After all it was only changed about ten years ago.” You have an opinion which you can’t back up with any facts that anyone reading this can discuss. For all we know you’re an 80 year old only child who never went to college.
As for what you know, “I know enough. I know that when fees were there, my brother and sisters couldn’t go to college, but when they were removed, I could. QED. ” That would more honestly read “I know some things but not others I don’t know what the thresholds were or what our income was at the time. I know that when fees were there, my brother and sisters didn’t go to college, but when they were removed, I did. Could it be my parents choose for my brothers or sisters not to go because there were younger siblings to be taken care of? I don’t know.” You should think about checking the facts that were there at the time.
Ray said,
May 9, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Dan, the good news is, you don’t have two heads. The bad news is, that’s one hell of a chip.
Why would anyone have researched the thresholds for things that had been abolished by the time they were going to college? Why would anyone remember the details of something they never received? Do you know how much the dole was 10 years ago? What the income threshold for medical cards was? How much one could claim in rent allowance? Why don’t you know those figures as well you do your results in something that you were repeatedly told was the most important exam of your life? Very suspicious.
Karen said,
May 9, 2006 at 11:14 pm
Daniel,
You’re making assumptions about me and you don’t know me! No, my parents didn’t choose for my brother and sisters not to go to college cos there were other siblings to look after…they wanted to go BUT THEY COULDN’T AFFORD TO!. Which is the point of this whole bloody debate!Remember Danny boy, I was there IN MY FAMILY when this happened, you weren’t! People who assume that less well off people choose not to do things such as go to college, rather than that the decision was forced upon them for financial reasons, really need a reality check.
“It is kind of hard to discuss this as you appear to either not have any facts to hand, or to be unwilling to refer to them” What facts do you want me to back up? That I was able to go to college and my siblings weren’t? That I’m poor? That my mother earned X amount? Do you want her P60 for that year? That before fees were abolished I wouldn’t have been able to go to college, but after they were I could? How can I back that up? It’s fact, it happened to me, you’ll have to trust me on this one! Or if you like, I can introduce you to my parents and you can discuss it with us?
And I can remember my Leaving Cert results smart boy (Seven honours, all at higher level, seeing as you seem so interested). My comment about it being 10 years ago related to remembering what the income levels/thresholds were, I just can’t remember the exact figures, so sue me! As Ray so rightly pointed out who remembers every income level/threshold of all things of all time?
“For all we know you’re an 80 year old only child who never went to college.” I’m not. I’m a-27-year-old woman with one brother and two sisters. Click on the link to my blog, there’s a picture of me taken at the Irish Blog Awards, most of the people who comment on my blog met me, they’ll confirm I’m not 80 (in need of wrinkle cream perhaps, but not 80).
So in conclusion, this was a debate about college fees, I spoke about my own personal experience whereby the abolition of college fees enabled me to go to college and you decided to stick your oar in and attack me for no reason, as if you somehow don’t believe me! What’s so hard to believe? I don’t need to “check the facts that were there at the time” as you put it…cos I WAS THERE at the time!
Can anyone else help me out here? Am I missing some big point that’s being made and I’m just not seeing it? Is it really that hard to believe or understand that the abolition of fees worked for me? I’m not talking about anyone else, just me, the abolition worked for me! Why do you find that so hard to comprehend Danny?
ben said,
May 10, 2006 at 6:14 am
I would reiterate my thinking, that the burden of proof is on those who claim that the abolition of fees never helped no-one ever. Karen and Gerry have both attested to it making a considerable difference.
The idea of a means-tested, don’t-subsidize-the-rich plan didn’t occur when we were talking about the headage payment for children, as I recall. But now we have give back control over who gets a third-level education to county fucking councillors, of all people, for a good means testing? How much will we spend in committees and minutes and fact-finding trips and postage and inquiries and interviews and appeals and bureaucratic torture for these mean tests, I wonder? You’ll get your answer in November. And we might change it next month. And the grant cheque will be along any minute now, so it might, now, Michael, so it might.
Sarah said,
May 10, 2006 at 11:12 am
oooooooooooook
I’ll clarify some things to help matters:
1. It is indeed possible that the abolishment of fees may have helped someone from a disadvantaged background go to college. However, if they were truly disadvantaged they would have gotten a grant anyway.
2. We can all acknowledge that the grant system was stupid and in need of reform. For starters, why not let the Revenue Commissioners do the means test instead of the county council?
3. 3rd level vs primary was brought into the debate simply because of the notion of competing resources. IMHO increasing funding for small children in disadvantaged areas through the primary schools will benefit the greatest number of people to the greatest extent. Simply abolishing 3rd level fees may have indeed helped a lot of lower middle class poverty trap people, but it still socially inequitable that, as has been pointed out already, the top feeder schools for TCD and UCD are all fee paying and yet those parents don’t have to pay college fees. So let’s focus on bashing the rich instead of lining up to compete in the victim competition.
Daniel K. said,
May 10, 2006 at 11:32 am
ben, I don’t recall suggesting the abolition of fees helped absolutely no one. That would have been Sarah. I do believe that it helped far fewer working class people than increasing the thresholds for exemption from paying fees and also tagging maintenance grants to the dole so that we didn’t have the farce of students who were doing something to make themselve more employable got less than those who sat at home and did nothing.And councillors did not operate the means test for the old grants. Nor would I suggest they should.
Ray,
“Why would anyone have researched the thresholds for things that had been abolished by the time they were going to college? ” If someone lost out on something like going to college because of being €500 or whatever over the income threshold they’d remember it. And her brothers and sisters did so surely that would be big thing for them. I don’t know what the dole was ten years ago, but I can tell you want it was I started on it about £28, and when I was last on it about £48. Rent allowance was whatever the rent was less either £3.50 or £2.50 which had to come out of the dole. I was living in Limerick at the time so it was hard to breach the upper limits. I would remember when my father was earning £108 when the medical card threshold was £106. Because my mother was always so annoyed that we would be better off on the dole and she felt that the system gave people no reason to work. You remember things that were important to you.
Karen, it must be so much easier to attack people then deal with the points they raise. I didn’t ask for your leaving cert results, just suggested that people tend to be able to remember things about what was important to them. Did you agree that raising thresholds would have dealt with the situation you found yourself in? You don’t have to remember the exact threshold but if you genuinely have no idea not even to the round €1000 per year how much over the threshold your family income was at the time then what is there to discuss. I hate to suggest it but parents have been know to lie to their children for all kinds of reason. All you can know is what your parents told you unless you saw the P60 yourself. If you don’t know what the threshold was nor what your family income was then it is possible (I’m not saying it is very likely) that by getting your family into serious debt that your B&S could have gone to college. Not a good choice for any family to face. And my whole point is that raising the income thresholds would have most likely solved the problem you faced much more equitably than abolishing fees completely. But you’ve not engaged with that at all. My response, not attack, was to your original comment which had the sentence
“I’m from a disadvantaged area of Dublin, there was unemployment in our house for many many years.”
Ray said,
May 10, 2006 at 11:42 am
Three reasons to abolish college fees (or keep them abolished)
1. It’s a clear benefit, so hard to roll back. The fact that it benefits everyone means that there’s less political pressure to roll it back. If it didn’t benefit the middle-class, it would be much easier for politicians to squeeze.
2. It has a psychological impact. Knowing that there are no fees makes college seem accessible, in a way that knowing that there are grants that you can apply for, and might get some money from, eventually, after means-testing, doesn’t. (Also, the process of being means-tested, and having to apply, makes grants feel like handouts, and people don’t like handouts.)
3. No administration costs.
I agree with your last point, my problem is with the idea that reinstating college fees is the solution. Want to soak the rich? Put a penny on the top rate of income tax. That’d pay for a lot more primary school teachers than reintroducing fees.
Ray said,
May 10, 2006 at 11:53 am
Daniel, you don’t seem to have realised that the grant thresholds weren’t important to karen, because she didn’t apply for them. You know what the dole was when you were collecting it, but you don’t know what the dole was when I was on it. If Karen’s brother and sister missed out on college by 500 pounds, they might be able to tell you exactly what the figures were, but why would Karen? She didn’t pay fees, she didn’t apply for grants. It’s like expecting me to know what the points were for my younger brother’s course, because I know what the points were for my own five years earlier.
I mean, you agree that abolishing fees helped some people, so why insist that Karen either produce a P60 or accept that her parents were liars who spent her brother’s college fund on a night out at Leopardstown? Nobody has argued that there weren’t other ways of helping people like Karen pay for college, so why not accept that abolishing fees did actually work for her family?
Karen said,
May 10, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Ahhhhh thank you Ray! Finally, someone get’s what I was trying to say! I don’t like the suggestion either that my parents were lying! God, if I was an angry type of person I’d get the folks to sue him for libel! Why he seems so convinced, as a total stranger, that he knows how poor my family was in the late 90s is a mystery to me! Abolishing fees worked for me, that’s the last time I’m going to say it!
Yes, raising the threshold levels would have allowed me to go to college, but the thing about thresholds is there’s always a limit. Who’s to say that highering them would have allowed me to go, but still prevented someone else who’s parents were slightly better off but still couldn’t have afforded to send their kids to college without free fees? It would mean that someone would still be left behind. If you abolish fees totally, that limitation is removed, everyone is eligible to go.
If you take the new GP visit card or medical card as an example, the threshold for medical card for a single person living alone is €184 (as of Oct 2005 figures, it may be slightly more now). What use is that to anyone? So higher the threshold then right? Well not really as unless that was raised significantly (and I don’t mean by 20 euro or anything, I mean, literally doubled or even trebled) then lots and lots and lots of people earning say 250 a week (still a nominal wage, you’d barely survive, I wouldn’t fancy it) wouldn’t qualify. So that’s why I have a problem with increasing the thresholds as opposed to abolishing fees altogether…do you see? Thresholds impose limits and they’re generally raised by a very small amount, if they’re raised at all, so in my opinion, we’re better off abolishing college fees. I’d be in favour of upping the maintenance thresholds too and the money received, how they expect students to live on it is beyond me.
Gerry said,
May 10, 2006 at 1:59 pm
“lower middle class poverty trap people”; Sarah I have never been so accurately summed up.
Re-establishing fees is a low yield, clumsy option that will discourage many of my people (i.e. LMCPTP*) to go to college; contrary to every stated government policy. And stop dismissing Karen (you and Dan) by saying that you would have got a grant anyway if you had been “really disadvantaged”; coming up with IR£2000 per child cash post tax on top of everything else you have got to pay was beyond more than the destitute.
The point is that reintroduction will largely send a negative message with very little perceived benefit. I realise FG policy is to squeeze the rich until the pips squeak but there is too much collateral damage in doing it this way.
As to the top feeder schools etc; well someone’s got to learn latin.
gerry
g
tom said,
May 10, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Free fees is nice and simple, I’ll give you that.
It is also, given the status quo in the Irish education system, grossly unfair on the working and lower middle-classes who pay their taxes to send young southside ladies on ‘arts administration’ courses, whilst their own kids are consigned to rat-infested shitholes where any hope of higher learning is effectively over by the age of about 8.
I think that’s the issue.
I don’t oppose free fees (in fact I expect to make use of them) but I would like to see the opportunity of higher education extended to all. Until that happens the current system is a little like subsidised train travel. Makes us all feel warm and fuzzy but the reality is the poor subsidising the rich.
Gerry said,
May 10, 2006 at 5:15 pm
anyone want to jump to an asccusationof nazism at this time?
Daniel K. said,
May 10, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Karen, I never said that abolishing fees didn’t work for you. You admit that raising the threshold levels would have allowed you to go to college, but the thing about thresholds is there’s always a limit. and a limit would have prevented someone else who’s parents were slightly better off but still couldn’t have afforded to send their kids to college without free fees I would say the point about limits is that at some point the people are actually able afford the fees. And folks, I never asked to see anyone’s P60. I simply suggested that unless Karen had seen it then she was taking it on trust (and who doesn’t trust their parents) what the household income was. Is that not factual correct? I’m not having a go at you. I’m trying to work off the information you have provided to support your argument to make my point about threshold being more equitable. Sure no fees is easier and simpler to do. So was banning married women from working as a means to reduce unemployment, it still doesn’t make it right.
The problem with the previous thresholds is that they were much too low (and there were many years when they didn’t move at all ) along with the problem no one has mentioned which is that the fees were not related to the cost of the course. So, colleges cross subsided course by allowing in loads of Arts students because those courses are cheap to run, prof, TAs and some rooms and kicking them out at the end of first year to subside the med and engineer students lots of equipment needed there.
Karen, your argument is, I think, that because free fees meant you went to college they are a good idea while I didn’t pay fees because I was under the threshold and believe that the thresholds were a better means to distribute the available money.
It would seem that tom gets the point that free fees are not the most equitable way to spend our money if we are genuine about tackling disadvantage.
And I hate to break it to folks but ‘registration fees’ in the colleges now are over the €1000 mark, so we have fees by the back door.
Gerry, I think that Sarah’s comment about “However, if they were truly disadvantaged they would have gotten a grant anyway.” does address a broader point which is that many people appear on the surface to have much more money coming in but with so many other things to pay for now which they didn’t have to previously end up with less income at the end of it all. So people feel poorer than they are. My old man was a council worker and I would not say we were well off by any means (£2 over the medical limit is hardly rolling in it) but it would never have occurred to me to say we were poor. And I still wouldn’t say we were poor, we never went anywhere on holidays but there again neither did anyone else we knew.
And you try and tell that to young people today, and they won’t believe ya!
ben said,
May 10, 2006 at 7:10 pm
And it continues with the callous hypocrisy, sneering at people who “would have gotten a grant anyway”. You’ve made your proclamation about people not benefiting from free fees and damn the evidence to the contrary, you’ll stick to it.
“It would seem that tom gets the point that free fees are not the most equitable way to spend our money if we are genuine about tackling disadvantage.”
Giving a headage payment of 1,000 Euro per child to all parents isn’t equitable either, but you don’t give a tinker’s damn for what was equitable or what was tackling disadvantage there as long as you get yours. Paying for the upkeep of the Museum of Natural History doesn’t exactly tackle disadvantage either but I still say it’s worth it. Weeping about any government expenditure that isn’t directly buying food for starving babies is easy and stupid.
The whole issue of free fees here is a ridiculous red herring. Tying your sob-stories about heroin-addicited primary schoolers to free fees is a cynical, contemptible device and you know it. You have suddenly decided that (a) free fees are the cause of ALL disadvantage in the country, even after decades in which tax revenues have soared, (b) you have identified one uniquely magical area where a simple solution exists of cutting spending modestly in one area and assigning it neatly to another, and (c) suddenly, means testing is great so long as it doesn’t affect you. And you’ve come to these absurd conclusions with such self-righteous savagery that you’d condemn anyone who supports free fees as someone who wants to torture disabled schoolchildren and rape their drug-addled teenage mothers.
Then, for a dismount, you misappropriate Stephen Colbert’s disdain for exactly this sort of villainous hypocrisy and attempt to project it on those who support the laudable goal of free, quality education for all.
There’s a lot of “truthiness” here that would make one sick to the stomach alright, but Mary Hanafin is most certainly not responsible for it. This is all vicious, sneaky bullshit of the first order.
Daniel K. said,
May 10, 2006 at 8:17 pm
ben, who are you talking to with this? “And it continues with the callous hypocrisy, sneering at people who “would have gotten a grant anyway”. You’ve made your proclamation about people not benefiting from free fees and damn the evidence to the contrary, you’ll stick to it.”
“It would seem that tom gets the point that free fees are not the most equitable way to spend our money if we are genuine about tackling disadvantage.”
I never claimed that no one benefitted from free fees. And I haven’t talked about headage payments either. You get the idea that I’m not Sarah? I mean I’d never look that good in a dress for a start.
Ray said,
May 10, 2006 at 10:16 pm
Quick calculation 166 euro a month child benefit x 12 months x 16 years = 31k + 1k a year for the under 6s = 37k.
Not means tested.
Even taxed at 42% that’s 21k for every child, whether or not they go to college.
Anyone want to advocate means-testing child benefit instead, and giving all that money to the primary schools?
Anyone want to predict what the level of child benefit would be in 20 years time, if it was means tested?
Call me crazy, but I think free fees are more like child benefit than they are like bans on married women in the workplace.
tom said,
May 10, 2006 at 11:32 pm
ben there are so many straw men in that comment it’s hard to know where to begin. Nobody is saying that all government spending has to be focused on starving kids. However if you are going to spend an amount of money it is fair to ask whether the measure you are taking actually does much to address the issue that it is supposed to. In a perfect world in which means-testing actually works, then it certainly would have been preferable to raise the thresholds for those receiving both fees and grants. I absolutely believe that is true. Even with free fees there are far too many people in Ireland for whom the idea if third level education is entirely academic (sorry) even though they will never have to ‘pay’ for it.
A good analogy is with the medical cards for the over 70s. As a measure to improve access to medical services it was certainly simple, but nowhere near as fair and equitable as increasing the thresholds for all would have been. It was also a useful political bribe, just like free fees.
Basically what I am saying is that you are worse than Hitler.
tom said,
May 10, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Ray
If the means-testing was transparent and fair, and the money saved went directly to improving pupil teacher ratios (ie no mickey mouse stuff) then I would advocate means testing child benefit in order to improve primary education for all.
Why not?
Ray said,
May 11, 2006 at 9:28 am
Sure, that would keep opportunities the same at third-level, and increase them at primary level (and so at third-level 20 years down the line). I’d add another caveat – I’d have to be sure that the level of funding would remain the same, that the money going to grants wouldn’t start dropping as the middle-class started benefitting less.
I agree completely that that would be a more equitable way of spending the money, but I seriously doubt that’s how things would work.
Sarah said,
May 11, 2006 at 10:48 am
Now that Tom has invoked Godwin’s Law…let’s call it a day!
Daniel K. said,
May 11, 2006 at 11:17 am
I’m not going to get further into this one, in part because we are all (I’m including myself here) raising related but not core issues. Anyway, look at it this way, Sarah, there has to be another column in all this somewhere!
tom said,
May 11, 2006 at 11:41 am
Sarah. Your unilateral decision to close down this discussion is worthy of Stalin himself.
I should point out that Gerry started it by the way.
Sarah said,
May 11, 2006 at 12:47 pm
i thought Gerry was begging for the debate to put out of its misery?
Ray said,
May 11, 2006 at 2:03 pm
I think Gerry despaired of finding a final solution to this problem.
Sarah said,
May 11, 2006 at 2:25 pm
fnar fnar….
Hanafin rumbles at Gavin’s Blog said,
May 14, 2006 at 2:34 pm
[...] Sarah gets a reply from Mary Hanafin in relation to last week’s article in the Sunday Times. She seems a tad miffed. Sarah replies on her blog. Her other very carefully chosen phrase is that “in the coming school year” the pupil:teacher ratio will be 10:1. The Principal explained how the Minister is able to say this. Since the school is closing, they are not taking in a new class of pupils in September as it would normally do. Furthermore some of the parents have found schools for the pupils and want to move them now to get in ahead of the main pack when the school does close in 2007. Therefore, as a result of the decision to close, they have less pupils, which has brought the ratio down from 15:1 to 10:1. But Hanafin allows you to believe that the teacher loss in itself would have meant a 10:1 ratio. Very sneaky. [...]
geist_reid said,
May 17, 2006 at 12:13 pm
I disagree. I got to go to college because of free fees. My parents wouldnt be able to afford to send me otherwise. My secondary school and primary had a cheap school books scheme which helped a lot too.
geist_reid said,
May 17, 2006 at 12:23 pm
>And I hate to break it to folks but ‘registration fees’ in the colleges now >are over the €1000 mark, so we have fees by the back door.
Ya. If you dont qualify for the grant (didnt pay my rent but lowered the reg fees to around e50-70) you are in deep trouble with the registration fees. Thats why people kept protesting through my years in college. Saying that I wouldnt have made it through the last year without help from my boyfriend. I could barely afford rent never mind books or food, the stress was huge and working while studying would have resulted in me failing.
Also mature students who used to qualify for a very good back to education program, were very angry when that was made useless by ff. Many of them had just started or where half way through theire degrees.
I personally like my taxes going to education, I’m happy paying for other people to get the chances I did. Now Im earning more than minium wage and reaching middle class. I didnt have much chance of that without these scheme coming from a lower class background (rural-poor).
If we want to complain about money not going to a good cause we should look more closely at all the tax dodges available to the upper-middle and upper classes, who end up paying