Reports include education, 5,000 days of Drumcree; Mayo village’s Titanic celebrationSchools project leads to jobs boost
Belfast Telegraph – New Government plans for a massive 1.5 billion euro school building project could create around 18,000 jobs, it has been claimed. Minister for Education and Skills Ruairi Quinn unveiled the five-year project, which will see the construction of 157 brand new schools and extensions to 118 existing buildings.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/republic-of-ireland/schools-project-leads-to-jobs-boost-16129865.html
Teachers dispute Quinn’s claims on new €1.5bn schools programme
TheJournal.ie – The INTO says only 17 of the primary schools being built under the new programme are actually new; the rest are replacements.
The private primary: can it survive?
Irish Times – With news that St Anne’s primary school in Dún Laoghaire is set to close, making it the latest victim of the recession, we examine the viability of this niche in the private education sector. They cost the taxpayer nothing. Teacher salaries come entirely from school fees. Some are desperately struggling to stay afloat; others provide stables for the children’s ponies. They are Ireland’s 34 private primary schools, 7,610 children attend them, and they’re out on their own.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/education/2012/0313/1224313203670.html
Schools and church hotbeds of homophobia
Independent.ie -The Catholic Church’s homophobic hypocrisy is leaving our young people confused, writes Carol Hunt. Last week about 3,000 schools nationwide took part in the Stand Up To Homophobic Bullying campaign. An initiative of the BeLonG To Youth group, to all intents and purposes it was a terrific success and the added involvement of rugby star Ben Cohen and GAA hero Donal Og Cusack generated a fair amount of prime-time media coverage.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/carol-hunt-schools-and-church-hotbeds-of-homophobia-3046387.html
Orange Order marks 5,000 days of Drumcree dispute
Irish Times – The Orange Order has marked 5,000 days of protest over the continuing Drumcree dispute in Co Armagh. As happens every Sunday, a group of Orangemen met at Drumcree Parish Church to march as far as a police line, where they handed over a letter of protest. The weekly protest is in response to the ongoing decision of the Parades Commission that the Orange Order may not return along the nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown on their annual summer parade.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0312/1224313154631.html
Mayo village which lost eleven people on the Titanic to commemorate sinking
TheJournal.ie – Fourteen residents of the small village of Addergoole were on board the Titanic when it sank one hundred years ago next month.