Friday's Debrief
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
And you are very welcome to The Debrief, where we look back at some of the biggest stories of the week. And today I'm joined by author and political editor of The Sunday Times, Jennifer Bray, professor of political economy at UCD, Aidan Regan, and writer and columnist Deirdre Reynolds. You're all very welcome to the show. I'm going to start with you, Aidan. Right. And I'm going to look at a tweet, two tweets that you put up this week. Right.
What are the biggest stories of the week covered in this episode?
Ireland's primary schools are built for the single earner household. The economy moved on. The school day didn't. The second tweet, primary teaching is a part-time job, a beautiful and worthy one that should be well paid, but is part-time.
Yeah, the second tweet is probably a little bit unfair, you know.
I can't imagine that made you very popular at the school gates this week.
No, but the more serious point is that... I think as most parents will understand, like if you don't have flexibility in your job, I don't know how people manage kids in primary school. I mean, the one o'clock finish. for kind of younger kids, two o'clock finish, you need to have a lot of flexibility and you need to have obviously an afterschool system that's integrated. So the real issue here is that I think it is true that the primary school system is designed on the assumption that there's somebody at home, right? And that world doesn't really exist anymore. It's kind of designed on the assumption typically it's the woman at home. And we haven't really developed an integrated afterschool system yet.
So you don't necessarily think that the school day should be a little bit longer?
No, I think pedagogically, the school day is probably about right in terms of the kid in class teaching time. And it is true, for example, Irish teachers actually work more than the average OECD. whatever about the summer's off and stuff, but they do work.
How does Aidan Regan critique the Irish primary school system?
And there's obviously a lot of emotional labour involved. But I think the best practice model, if you're looking at Sweden or Denmark or Germany, where you have a school system where you have, yes, you're in class pedagogical teaching of the kids, but it's integrated with the after school system. You know, there's a recognition that most people are working full time. So it has to be a continuous day, basically from nine to five in the kids' best interest. We don't have that. It's a bit of a kind of, oh, are you lucky enough to have the after school on site or not? You have to pick the kids up. You have to bring them somewhere else. Or do you have to get a child minder? So we don't really have a proper integrated after school system.
I think that's the big problem. They're kind of completely siloed. The school does one thing. The after school does something else. It's not like it's integrated into what's in the best interest of the kids. How do we put together a proper programme for kids during that period of time? So, yeah, that's kind of the more point. I think teachers deserve to be very well paid and deserve their time off.
And you don't think it's part time work?
I mean, look, let's be honest. Like if you have two or three months off a year, like that's not full time work. I don't mean that in any bad way.
What challenges do parents face with primary school hours?
That's like if you had three months off or two months off, would you consider yourself to be working full time? Probably not. No. And I don't mean it like it's not meant to be a mean statement. It's just that actually it's a quite it's quite a good job to have. It gives you a lot of flexibility. And come the summertime with the after school or with the summer camps, as I think we all know, it's that time of year where everybody's thinking, well, how do I get my kids? What am I going to do in July and August? Well, we have to get into the summer camps. But if you're a teacher, you don't really have that problem because you're at home with your kids. So I think a lot like it's good that we value our private school system.
It's good that we value our teachers and it's good that we have that flexibility.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:36
2
What are the biggest stories of the week covered in this episode?
0:36–1:49
3
How does Aidan Regan critique the Irish primary school system?
1:49–2:51
4
What challenges do parents face with primary school hours?
2:51–11:05
5
How do teachers perceive their workload and compensation?
11:05–18:29