At the start of March, we got some good news on the planned cuts to Special Needs Assistants. Due to the public coming together and protesting these planned cuts, the working class of Ireland has put enough pressure on the government to make them turn that around and reverse their decision.
The public, however, see the writing on the wall and have come to the realisation that the government will not keep their promises. They fear that this is just a temporary decision and they will be worse off down the line.
I’d say they are correct, given the government’s track record on protecting vulnerable minorities.
This is the issue with looking at everything, including public schooling, through a lens of profit. It excludes those who cannot keep up, or function differently, in the course to make them into a well‑conditioned worker. Where education should be about bettering yourself and your society into more well‑rounded humans, who can do anything with enough help, it is instead about cutting costs. People who need more support are treated like they’re a constraint on the business of education, not children or teenagers who just need a little more help dealing with a society that doesn’t fully include them and a school system that can be really difficult to fit into.
Perhaps we can look at Cuba, who have all‑encompassing care in schooling for people with disabilities. In the case of Cuba, teaching can be flexible to ensure the child has their needs met as well. A child can enrol in a special school and, based on continuous evaluation, get back into mainstream schools, while still receiving support.
Of course, the ongoing blockade on Cuba does not help their shortage in specially trained teachers.
Bourgeois economists always tell us Ireland is a wealthy country. However, this is not seen by the working class, as we can see in our spending: a mere 2.8% of our GDP¹ is spent on education, where Cuba spends 9.4% of their GDP² (as of 2021) on it.
We know our government wants to allocate more funds towards warmongering, but at what cost? The Irish are known for being well educated—does the government not wish to maintain that image? Our healthcare is practically two‑tier already, local farmers are struggling, our universities are steering towards being only for those who can afford it. Is our primary and secondary education supposed to be like that as well?
“It is to the advantage of despots to keep people ignorant; it is to our advantage to make them intelligent,” as Mao put it.
I commend the parents, Special Needs Assistants, schools and communities who found a voice and expressed it as loudly as they could, and the students themselves as well who spoke out.
Ní neart go cur le chéile!
