The History of Irish Education - Coursework Example

The history of Irish education 2 School Affiliation: Introduction The Ireland republic got her independence from Great Britain in the year 1937 though it took until 1949 for the state to be declared officially a republic. The state remained neutral during the First World War though it offered clandestine assistance in order to secure the security of the Northern Ireland republic. Approximately 50, 000 volunteers from the state joined forces with the British army. The Irish republic was later to witness development in the education system due to the input of the state and different interdenominational churches. The association between the three internal departments of the inspectorates was of special concern given the salary differential that existed amongst them and the fact that they wielded different levels of power. The independence gained by the primary inspectorate early in the 19th century paved way for its domination by the central administration. At this point the inspectorate power had become so weakened that it held meaningless power up to a point of being unable to resist change. O Brolchain reorganisation into the system plans were introduced in 1922. This went a long way in altering the seniority of inspectors. The newly recruited inspectors were promoted and became heads of former seniors. These 1922 changes gave some power to the secondary inspectors. This was further assisted by the fact that up to 1940, the departmental centres and the ministry’s offices remained in the department of secondary schools inspectorate at Hume Street. The post of the departmental secretary was also filled by the secondary inspectorate officials from the period 1922 to 1968. This position had been previously held by officials from the other departments. The ascendancy of the departmental inspectorates to the secretariat may be the reason why there arose complexities in the policies that aimed to alter the education system. The economic development paper was completed in May 1958. This paper was shaped by the social and economic crises that were facing the finance department of May 1956. At this time the emigration issue was affecting the country as over 45, 000 people were moving out per year. This was at 75 percent of the birth rate. The economic boom that was being enjoyed by the rest of Western Europe and the United States remained a distant dream to Ireland republic. The total level of employment in the country had fallen to 12 percent during the period between 1950 and 1958. The volume of GNP had increased by only 6.5 percent. A further backdrop to the Ireland’s economic stagnation made serious cases for changes in planning. In light of these events, there were huge external and internal pressures therefore, change was thus inevitable. In April 1967, Donogh OMalley, the minister for education, revealed his plan to launch a single multidenominational university in Dublin. This was to be used in establishing a combined university in which case the Trinity College would join forces with the University College of Dublin. This would consequently lead to a single institution from the above two. It is on the same year during the month of September, that the free primary transport scheme was introduced. The CIÉ was to be used in bringing 38, 000 students to 350 schools within the country. In 1971, the higher education authority Act of 1971 was adopted to influence the course of the country higher education. In this Act the design of higher education was put to focus. The minister acting under the provisions of the Act made the following regulations: the designation of institution of higher education and each institution was designated as a higher education institution for the purposes of the Education Authority Act of 1973. The designated colleges included the College of Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland and the Loyal College of Surgeons in Ireland. After independence in 1944, the interdenominational churches continued to remain heavily concerned with health care and education provision. There was running of institutions which were staffed by the Catholic Church Orders. This was largely due to the new state that remained impoverished. The state’s main contribution was to offer rules and regulations to run schools. The hierarchy seemed to be opposed to the free public secondary schools services that were introduced in 1968 by Donogh OMalley, in part because they ran almost all such schools. Some have argued that the churchs strong efforts since the 1830s to continue the control of Catholic education was primarily to guarantee a continuing source of candidates for the priesthood, as they would have years of training before entering a seminary. The Catholic Church runs a scholarship programme where needy and deserving students are given sponsorship to study. This has been in existence since the inception of catholic education services. In providing scholarships, they were aiding the development of education. But a major criticism here rests on the fact that the sponsorships were geared towards helping only the catholic faithful. During this time, poets and scholars in any field were offered assistance (Akenson and Donald 1970). The establishment of Trinity College points to the religious works. This would play a significant role in the education of the country. This however came late in the previous century. Though, it should be realized that that college is predominantly protestant. In this case, it is also known that earlier on, only the protestant faithful could benefit. It is protestant but the standard the college has set shows something to aspire as it remains one of the best universities in the region. The catholic religion responded by establishing the Queen’s University and the Royal University of Ireland. The government however felt it was wrong to run an institution serving one denomination. Thus the Royal University was left open to all deserving cases for admission. As late as 1970, a long standing boycott by the Catholics was lifted. This tended to avoid enrolling in Anglican based institutions, especially the Trinity College. This shows the nature of bad blood that the provision of education was fostering in the country. Ideally, learning institutions should never be enclaves of domination by a few. Around the period of 1800, the Anglican Church was primarily responsible for the supervision of education for both the boys and girls at both the secondary and primary levels. But many sections of the country which were predominantly catholic remained resistant to this position. The many rural catholic areas in Ireland as a result remained without schools or refused to offer any kind of financial assistance (Binna and Hakuta 1994). There are about 547 Roman Catholic schools in the republic of Northern Ireland. All the schools in the country address the educational needs of about 329, 000 students. Of this population, the catholic managed schools provide service to about 148, 000, presenting a 45 percentage of the student population. Such is the level of influence that the catholic denomination wields on the educational front in the republic of Ireland (Binna and Hakuta 1994). The most important time in the establishment of a nationwide, state launched educational system of the elementary schools came in 1831. This was being championed by Lord Edward G.S.M. Stanley. Conflict arose on keeping the religious element within schools. This was after the realization that churches were providing supplementary classes on religious education. In reality, religion was let to continue influencing the educational system in different ways. Initially the Protestants were the main critics of the system which they branded one of godlessness. The Catholics were worried about the high illiteracy levels of the country. The Catholics having realized the need to improve on this, sought to lend support to the state run schools. The introduction of the compulsory usage of the Gaelscoil in schools also presented a major turnaround in the education system of the Ireland republic. It is alleged that Gaelscoil movement has been the most successful in Europe to spread the use of the lesser-used languages in an education system. The movement was also able to set up quite as good number of schools in both the rural and the urban areas. To cite a specific example, there are 31 Irish primary schools and 8 secondary schools in Dublin. In the City of Cork, there are 22 primary schools and 8 secondary schools. The Gaelscoil initiative has witnessed other similar introduction of such projects in Europe like in Scotland Gaelic, Basque and Catalan schools. This is a success in spread though back at home it has been witnessing so much criticism. The use of the Gaelic was made compulsory in early learning in the country. However, several criticisms have been labelled against its use. In the first three or two years after the study of the language, most learners admit that they do not remember much to do with the language as they can rarely maintain a conversation in it. The teachers that offer tuition on the language are believed to outnumber the adults that use it. This puts a spotlight on the need of the learning of this language. The Gaelic speaking districts have developed a feeling that they should disintegrate from the current system, a security threat to the nation. The Irish employers have also questioned the efficacy of the language due to the fact that they do not find it to have a great value to business. The need for the Gaelic fluency does not make business sense (Akenson and Donald 1970). As by international standards, the Ireland republic is way back. A good portion of the Ireland population does not identify with the language use under a host of circumstances. At this point the legitimacy question cannot be escaped. There is basically no justification whatsoever of using a language on a population that is disinterested. Most parents prefer that other more wide spread languages be used as opposed to the use of the language. In general terms, Gaelic language lacks relevance at the world stage. The Gaelic teaching has literary failed. It is alleged that children studying it always get a compulsory hour in studying the language. This is coupled with the homework in every school day for a period of eleven years of schooling. It is also presented that, more time is allocated to the language as compared to more important learning subjects like numeracy and arithmetic. The language only plays second fiddle to English in terms of time allocation. The fact that the language is rarely used indicates that students are unwilling to use it. An attempt to cram this language down the students’ minds may yield disastrous results as it stands to demoralize the individuals being subjected to it. This in effect would affect the overall education experience to the learning community. A disturbed learning experience, will definitely impact on the quality of manpower that a society raises. The quality of this manpower will also affect the kind of development that a society achieves. To address this, it is expected that such a system that embraces issues that affect its population negatively should be revised. Some of the teachers that offer the tutorial services on the subject are also believed to be dissatisfied. The compulsion aspect is being portrayed here as the sticky point. In a nutshell, the language opposition stems from the fact that it is forced on people. It could be wise if the language were presented as an option to students. That way, the demoralizing idea would be done a way with. There is no practical relevance in forcing people to learn something which they feel is an infringement on their freedom of choice (O Buachalla and Seamas 1988). Permitting students to study something of their choice is bound to lift their spirit and thus improve on their performance. This is true because the classroom environment would have been altered to meet the student needs. The only issue that may have led to the introduction of the language in the syllabus rests on the idea to find the Irish identity (O Buachalla and Seamas 1988). This is a non-issue as per the standards of logic. Psychologically, it would be worthy, but on the basis of logic, such an argument does not hold. It is not worthy to put a student through thirteen years of torture in the pursuit of identity. It could only make sense if attempts were made to convince the population into buying the worthy idea of the language. Anything else is uncalled for and unacceptable. Closer contact with the world, given the current tendencies toward globalisation, demands some level of uniformity. The insistence on Gaelic education does not appear to be in tandem with this realization, as a result there are serious issues that the education systems need to re-look at. Conclusion The Irish education experience is one riddled in the quagmire of religious conflict as per the revelation of this paper. It has been established beyond reasonable doubt that the Irish education has received much input from the religious community. The religious community has provided funding to different initiatives whose aim has been to improve the accessibility and quality of education in the republic. As it has been pointed, the protestant community establishes a number of colleges among them, the Trinity College. The Catholic Church also made similar contributions. The Gaelic speaking schools can also be considered to have brought a new element into the education system of the republic of Ireland. It is however worth noting that in as far as these initiatives went to address the education needs of the republic of Ireland, there were issues that cannot escape reconsideration. It is a fact that the religious sponsored institutors are biased in their service provision, an attribute that negatively affects the education needs of a population. Secondly, the Gaelic speaking schools, though introducing a new dimension to education, their compulsory nature of demanding that students study the language, have received wide condemnation. This points to the major setbacks of the contributions made. References Akenson & Donald, H 1970, The Irish Education Experiment, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Binna, W, & Hakuta, H 1994, In Other Words: The Science and Psychology of Second-Language Acquisition. New York: Basic Books. Dominic M, Alan S, & Ursula, B 1997, Education in Ireland, Irish Peace Institute Research Centre. O Buachalla & Seamas, 1988, Education Policy in Twentieth Century Ireland, Dublin, Wolfhound Press, C1, C2 & C3 Read More