Covid has taught us that we have to invest in a brighter future
EDUCATION is all about learning. Not just English and Maths, Science or History. From Primary One through to final year at university, it is about learning life skills too. Forming social bonds. Feeling valued. Finding the right path through life, wherever those futures may lead.
But there is one major thing we have definitely been taught all over again, even if we all knew it before.
Prior to Covid, there had been little investment in those futures.
Head teachers told how parents had been donating toilet rolls, pens and pencils. Fewer teachers, bigger classes, stressed teachers.
Northern Ireland students have always punched above their weight when it comes to academic achievement. It is hard to keep those punches flowing when hands are tied behind backs.
Just imagine how good things might be without the decades of cutbacks. That schools have still managed to produce wonderful success rates for pupils across all walks of life is an achievement in itself. But the creaks in the system have been ravaged by Covid.
Seven months, going on eight, of remote learning for most pupils is a long time in the life of a pupil. Every school year sees a crucial development, both academically and socially.
To have taken that away from them, through no fault of their own, has left many struggling.
Add to that the digital divide between the have and the have nots and the concerns over home schooling, the chaos over A-level grades last August, university life disrupted, the late decisions from the Department of Education, the on-off, on-off confusion over transfer tests, the further cancellation of last summer’s exams and there is a lot to recover from.
And remember, education was at a pretty low point to begin with when Covid struck a year ago.
As president of the National Association of Head Teachers, Dr Graham Gault was there at the start of Covid. He is still standing now, despite the twists and turns.
“Back in March 2020 our school leaders, on the arrival of Covid, were just coming out of a period of industrial disagreement over issues of workload — excessive, unreasonable, relentless workload,” he said.
“When Covid arrived it was extremely difficult for everybody. Everything was fast moving, a very, very complicated time.
“All of the support services for our schools — social services, behavioural support, family respite, even the Education Authority’s support services — disappeared.
“It was our school principals who were left there trying to manage circumstances for children of our key workers and online learning at home, with varying degrees of capacity in terms of resourcing, support for vulnerable and disadvantaged children having disappeared.
“Then we managed to crawl our way through to summer time. We dealt with all of the changing guidance issues. Was it going to be full classes, half classes, how was social distancing going to be managed? We were trying to get ourselves resourced with PPE and all of the rest.”
There was no breathing space for school principals at all, Dr Gault recalled.
“And then September arrived and school restarted. It’s very complex running a school at the best of times, but it’s extremely demanding currently,” he said.
“The workload has been immense. Nothing sort of immense.”
According to Dr Gault, keeping schools functioning has taken evenings and weekends. He is worried about the burden placed on teachers school principals and vice-principals.
“There is a threshold of what we can actually carry and our school principals are simply at the end of what they can deliver,” he added.
A tentative move back into classrooms is planned on March 8 with P1 to P3 pupils.
The Minister would like things to move more quickly.
What happens after that is in the hands of Covid.
But academics have already warned that there needs to be a major overhaul of how education is run in Northern Ireland.
At Ulster University’s Unesco Education Centre, they have called for a complete reform of the education system after a report concluded that the current system is “unsustainable”.
It said the influence of the church and politics had created a confused, bloated and ultimately costly system that is no longer fit for purpose without ambitious and radical reform.
The report said the system has been left “divided, splintered and overly expensive” and as a result has become “confusing and socially divisive”.
It is a challenge to the Department of Education which, in trying to streamline the system over the past 20 years, has managed to build a complex, bloated and ultimately highly expensive system which tries to keep all parts of society in control of their own interests, but which isn’t actually in the interests of those who matter most, the children. Change, though, is promised. A spokesperson for the department said: “The forthcoming Independent Review of Education is expected to consider a range of issues with a focus on improving the effectiveness, efficiency and quality of our education system. The Terms of Reference for the Review explains that it will include consideration of system level design, delivery and administration.”
But what of the pupils themselves? The NI Youth Forum addressed Stormont’s Executive Committee last week. Students are raising their voices.
“We hear terms like anxious and annoyed and frustrated as being the key words that young people are feeling — if that isn’t a call to action by an Executive and political representatives then I don’t know what we are here to do,” Committee chair Colin Mcgrath said after the meeting.
We’ve been here before. Education cannot afford to have to go back again in a few years’ time.
MORE than 11,000 fines amounting to almost £540,000 were handed out to drivers illegally using bus lanes in Belfast in 2019, new figures have revealed.
Data obtained by insurance comparison website Confused. com shows that Northern Ireland ranks 11th in terms of revenue generated by fines out of all UK regions.
Across the UK, drivers paid out almost £60m in fines over more than 800 bus lane cameras in 2019.
Motorists wrongly using a bus lane face fines of £90, reduced to £45 if paid within 14 days.
Figures show that, in 2019, 11,371 parking charge notices (PCNS) were issued to drivers across five bus lanes in Belfast, amounting to £537,008 in revenue.
This is down from the £879,514 in revenue generated over 16,360
PCNS in 2018. In 2019, the bus lane in Donegall Square East saw the most fines issued at 4,344, followed by Great Victoria Street at 3,817 and College Square East with 1,511.
Uk-wide, the region with the highest amount of money generated through bus lane fines was London, which raked in £14,688,255 over 301,651 PCNS.
An online poll over 2,000 UK drivers carried out on behalf of Confused.com showed that 38% of respondents who were issued with fines blamed unclear bus lane signs. This is followed by unclear road markings at 31%.
Alex Kindred, a car insurance expert at Confused.com, said: “Clearly drivers want change to avoid receiving a fine for a genuine mistake. It’s only right that some of the money from PCNS is invested back into solutions, such as clearer signage and exemptions for first-time offenders.”
‘Some money should be invested back into solutions’