My Election Manifesto

Don't worry, I'm not running in the General Election! You already have enough of me.

However, theoretically, if I got to write a Manifesto, there are 4 main areas I would focus on:

1. Patronage
2. Special Education
3. Funding
4. Teacher Shortage

You might be surprised by the first one... listen on your favourite podcast platform

Episode Transcript

Simon (00:00):
Hello?
Hello.
You're welcome to if I were theminister for education from anseo.net.
A regular podcast where I look at theworld of primary education in Ireland
and let you know, what I would do ifI were the minister for education.
On this week's show my election manifestofor the general election of 2024.

(00:24):
Hello, this is Simon Lewis fromanseo.net with an other episode of if
I were the minister for education, andthis is a general election special.
Now, before you startworrying, please do not worry.
I have not put my name forward forthe general election on November 29th.
I'm sure you'll all agree.

(00:44):
You already put up with enough of me.
I absolutely have to say I admireanyone that puts themselves forward
to the people of this country.
On whether or not, Iagree with their policies.
It's definitely a braveand vulnerable thing to do.
I'm absolutely not braveenough to do that right now.
I'm even struggling on socialmedia, nevermind politics, where I

(01:07):
I'm thinking about leaving X, likeeverybody else seems to have a,
the reason I haven't left already.
I'm not thinking of leaving actsbecause of any political reasons.
You know, the Elon Musk, Donald Trump, alot of people are leaving because of that.
For me, it's simply because I just don'tthink you can have a discussion anymore.

(01:30):
On.
Twitter or ax.
Without it descending veryquickly into mud slinging.
I don't use that platformfor that or any platform.
For that I like to have.
Engagement with people.
I'd like to have robust discussions whenpeople don't agree with me or do agree
with me and we can solve problems andget different points of view across.

(01:55):
And I had this.
Funny experience.
I was playing around withdifferent social medias, like
LinkedIn and Instagram and threadsand blue sky and things like that.
I'm not quite sure where, what I'mgoing to do, but I basically have to
feel, I have to start all over again.
I think when my biggest problemsis my ego, maybe, you know, there's
18,000 people that I've built upas let's say followers, but it

(02:19):
just it's, that's just my ego.
I need to, if I have to start again.
I have to start again, but anyway, backto this story I was on and the difference
between let's say what Twitter became hasbecome, and on my experience on LinkedIn,
I put up one of my posts on Twitter andneedless to say, I received you know, this
particular users who just think it's okayto tell me To go back to my own country

(02:42):
or comment on my Jewish background andtell me that I'm not properly Irish,
all that kind of nonsense is not.
I don't know.
A few years ago when that happenedfor the first time, like the.
The president of the INTO rangme to wish me solidarity along
with loads of other people.
Whereas now it's just a weeklyoccurrence and you know, no one
says a word about, I was just, butI posted the same thing on LinkedIn.

(03:06):
It was around religion in schools.
And this guy.
Replied to us and she was, youknow, he put in an argument ad
against me and I responded to that.
And he then responded thing.
That's thanks Simon.
That clarifies things really well.
Thank you.
I don't think we agree on everything,but that's look forward to chatting
to you about this at some other time.

(03:28):
And I was like, wait, are you not goingto call me worse than Hitler or something?
It's just, I don't know.
Maybe I've just got used to the way.
Twitter has become a,maybe it's probably time.
Like most people that I know.
To say goodbye.
Anyway, that's why I'm not goingto get into the world of political.
So I can't even handle a few pot shotsfrom anonymous people on Twitter.

(03:52):
I don't think I'd survive a singleday in the world of politics and
probably for a whole host of reasons.
And I may be the world ofpolitics and the world's Twitter.
Aren't too different from what I'm seeing.
I think some of the personalattacks and some of the personal
commentary on politicians.
I just think it's.
There's just, it's just.
Terrible really.
And, maybe that's maybe.

(04:12):
That's why I'm not going to do it.
I don't know.
Maybe in the future.
We'll see.
So unfortunately now that I'm notgoing to be going for the Dáil,
it means I'm not going to be theminister for education for sometime.
Probably.
And probably never.
So I'm going to do a podcast.
Of theoretical policies.

(04:33):
I would propose if I was ableto lead the education portfolio.
If there is somehow some weird paralleluniverse that I didn't have to be elected
to being the minister for education.
But anyhow.
Let's just do it.
And we'll see what you think as always,I'm only going to focus on primary level.

(04:53):
So if you're actually interested insecond level for education, there's some
really good people still around on ax.
I'm sure they've moved to blue sky by now.
Just the way things are going, but Ican just name three secondary school
teachers who talk about education atthis sort of level in terms of analysis
and what the issues are at second level.

(05:13):
Humphrey Jones and Judy andgirdle, and also Connor Murphy.
Who I believe are talking alot of sense at the moment.
And there are others at Kara.
Quill as well as another dash.
I just would recommend to the ITO.
I'm also going to mention,because they have gone with 30.
Election manifesto items, 30 items.

(05:35):
But I'm going to go to focus onthree areas for my manifesto.
Because 30 is a lot.
Three is possibly manageable andthey are, and you won't be surprised
to hear any of these because Italk about them all the time.
Patronage special education and funding.
I was going to go with fourth.
Which seems to be a principal's number oneconcern at the moment ads, teacher supply.

(05:59):
But the area I believe is quite complex.
I believe it's going to be, it'srooted in lots of different areas.
Including the three areas,I'll be talking about it.
And I may even mentioned teachershortages in all of those areas.
And if you are interested, Ihave written about the teacher
shortage crisis on my medium blog.
And in fact, the show notesfor this podcast are on medium

(06:20):
and you can read this alarm.
It might be shorter than this podcastepisode, but the article you'd
be looking for is where are allthe primary school teachers where
I give and maybe an alternativetheory to why we have a teacher.
Teacher shortage.
Onto my manifesto.
I am worse than a politician.
I haven't said a word Yashin.
How many minutes have gone by.
Anyway, we'll start off with number one.

(06:41):
Our, my manifesto and that is patronage.
I don't think anyone wouldbe surprised to hear that.
If I could make one changeto the education system, it
would be to scrap patronage.
I talk about it.
So incessantly to the point that I'msure people avoid me in the street.
However, I genuinely believe that if thereis a single root of every single problem

(07:05):
in the education system, despite it beinga very complex system, removing patrons
completely from the education system.
I believe would unravel a largepercentage of the issues we have.
I've often compared to theeducation system at primary level
to Christmas decorations and theedge closer to Christmas seasons.
I can use this analogy.

(07:26):
And it's where I believe youget your Christmas decorations.
You put them up the first time you havean education system, and then you throw
the the decorations up in the attic.
And when you bring them down,they're all covered in nuts.
And then you try it on tangle or not.
And that creates another notchand that creates another notch.
And after a while you justgo ask, do you know what?
I'll just.
Throw it over the treeand hope for the best.
I think that's what our educationsystem of primary never looks like Bush.

(07:49):
If you were to have removed the biggestnut I would say patronage position.
And I think when people hearme speak about it, They tend to
think I'm focusing on religion.
Only.
And I think.
This is, and I think I don'tblame people because most of my
ire is with religious bodies.

(08:10):
What they do and how theycontrol the education system.
And it's not surprisingbecause 96% of patron bodies
are religious in their nature.
But.
For the purposes of this, I'm notentirely focusing on religion because
I do think it's absolutely crazy ina modern 21st century Republic that
religion plays so much of a parcel in theeducation system when it plays no part

(08:31):
in the daily lives of the vast majorityof people's jobs or lives anywhere.
The fact that a primary school teacher,most degree to effectively become
a missionary in most denominationalschools by leading prayer, preparing
children for right to passages likesacraments and providing own objective.
Faith forming lessons.
To meet is nothing short of bizarre.

(08:52):
And I think it is uniquein most parts of the world.
And it may even be unique in the world.
It's certainly unique inEurope, as far as I know.
And I was listening to a reallygood podcast, a friend of mine
Eva Cassidy was on Louise.
McSherry his podcasts, Louise McSherrysee, I think, I don't know her very well,
but I think she was raised in America.

(09:12):
Or she went to school in America.
And she was as speaking toAnd it was just interesting.
To me anyway, listening to her as apseudo sort of almost outsider to Ireland,
although she's in Ireland for a long timeby the air, by the signs of things, how.
She, how bizarre she findsthe education system.
So much, so she avoided sending her own.

(09:33):
Child or children to a denominationalschools because she just finds
it bizarre that we would youknow, the word is indoctrinated.
I know that word indoctrination is beingused for other political purposes, but
certainly faith forming a faith thatshe does not have to her children.
It just seems very odd toher and to me and to Eva.
However, I want to look beyondreligion here because when I say

(09:57):
would like to remove patronage fromthe education system, all patrons.
Not just the religious ones andnot just the ones I don't like
. There are a handful of non-religious patrons in Ireland are most of
you will know of educate together.
And many of you will know about the ETBsunder community national school model.
However, there are others one of thebiggest, bigger ones is on first Patrina.

(10:20):
Which is not actually a religiouspatron body, although many of their
schools are religious in nature.
There is saplings, which is thistype of special skills skill Sinead,
which is I think they have oneschool and then there are others.
For those of you don't know whata patron does, their main job.
And perhaps their only job is tocreate something that is known as the

(10:40):
characteristic spirit of the school.
So it's the ethos of the schooland whether that's a religious
leaning of the school, the language.
Of the school or other typesof characteristics that make
us the type of school it is.
So on first Patrina.
Their focus is on language and that is theIrish language and that is their ethos.

(11:04):
However to me.
Patron buddy act more as a buffer.
Ah it might have its ethosor its characteristics bears.
I see it as more of a buffer andit simply aids the state in dodging
its responsibilities are providing aproperly functioning education system.
Because if we look at the educationsystem, we look at the constitution.

(11:25):
At the moment it states that thegovernment provides for education.
It doesn't provide education.
It provides for education.
That tiny three letter word iswhy we have a patronage model.
The state is responsible forproviding money to patron bodies,
to run their network of schools.
And that includes paying for all theirbuildings, which is why the department

(11:48):
of education effectively gift somethinglike 5 billion Euro a year to the Catholic
church and gifted to them for free.
But the patrons body is to overseethis network of boards of management,
which is essentially a group of eight.
Meaning.
Volunteers who all manage, who are off.
Forced to voluntarily manage all aspectsof one school, each these eight people.

(12:11):
And because of this model, everyschool is a private entity, or I
like to call them little fiefdoms.
And to me, this is where theroot of everything bad in
the education system lies.
Schools in many ways are no differentfrom businesses despite being
about 95%, the same as each other.
So if you look at close shots, forexample, as a business, most clothes

(12:35):
shops are pretty much the same.
But they are all competingwith each other for survival.
Schools, income, unlike clothing shops,their income is dependent on the number
of children that attend their schools.
So depending on how many childrenattend your school, It depends.
On the amount of income you guysand the number of staff you have

(12:55):
also depends on the number ofchildren that attend the school.
And this creates a system where ifthere are more, if there's more than
one school in a particular area or acatchment area, They are all vying for
those same children in order to survive.
If you have no children,you have no teachers and you
have no money and you close.

(13:16):
But anything above zero means you survive.
Whether or not the schools have thesame patron body over them or not.
In most cases, they are stillcompeting with each other.
So even Catholic schools willcompete with other Catholic schools.
However, when you add that ingredientof patronage into the mix, it does add
another layer of competitiveness becausetwo Catholic schools, in some ways there's

(13:38):
very little in their differences at all.
And you could say there is achoice between those two schools
because they offer the same thing.
Catholic schools, for example, which arethe vast majority of schools try their
best to be everything to everybody.
In my view I don't thinkmost conflict schools are.
You know, Very Catholic anymore.
I think most people, I don't thinkthat's the in fact it's probably

(14:01):
the least controversial thingI've said about Catholic schools.
And in some ways I feel they doa really good job of pleasing.
The majority of people, essentially,most Catholic schools right now run a
gauntlet of being a nut to Catholic.
And being Catholic enough to pleaseboth their patron arms, their clients.
And when I say clients, I tend tomean parents rather than children,

(14:24):
because it's the parents who decidewhat school their child enrolls.
The vast majority of clientsare, what can kindly be called?
Cultural Catholics.
I think it is, I think it'sfair to say the vast majority of
Catholics in Ireland do not believein the tenants of Catholicism.
But they do like the rites of passage.

(14:47):
And I think I've heard it known.
As the hutches matchesand dispatches, so birth.
So the christenings, the matches,the weddings and the dispatchers,
the funerals as many call them.
But they can effectively outsource toother rights passages to the school,
namely the communion and confirmation,which don't rhyme with hatch match or
dispatch without having to take anyresponsibility for preparing their

(15:07):
own children for those sacraments.
So if you are a parent and you dothe baptism, you ag and outsource,
and the religious rites of passage,the communion and the confirmation
to a school without having to attend.
At the church very often.
For those clients, these parents thatthey want children to speak Irish.
Again, they can outsource thisto the school as many do, without

(15:31):
having to take any responsibilityfor learning the language themselves.
It strikes me as very interesting, thenumber of parents that enrolled their
children to Escalona but then send itto English, medium secondary schools.
I wonder why that is a lot of thetime and I have my own theories.
But I think it's a failure on someonethat children, if you go to a Gwalia.

(15:53):
School go to an Englishmedium primary school.
And I don't know if it's the guayle.
It's that, that has, thatis is the failure there.
I think there's some thing else going on.
And while I may be accused of in Ferring,gamification of the patron and system.
By those two examples whereparents use the system to gain a

(16:14):
perceived advantage for themselves.
Parents that don't have choices,which is generally anyone that doesn't
subscribe to Catholicism wherever theyare on the spectrum of devoutness the
patronage model is just, ah, lottery.
For a Muslim family that wantsa Muslim school for third child,
unless they live in Dublin orare willing to travel to Dublin.

(16:34):
The patronage model is no use to them.
They have no choice.
For a family that needed to sendtheir child to a non-religious school.
For example, they have to hopethat they live in an area where
there might be such a school.
And in Ireland in 2024, there arecurrently three counties where there isn't
a single non-religious primary school.
Almost half the counties inIreland have fewer than two.

(16:57):
So as you can see,choice is not something.
That is in everybody's blessing.
For example, I live in Carta.
There is only one primary school in Carlathat has a multi-denominational school.
I don't think I could consider myselfhaving a choice because I don't,
I cannot send my child or I cannotwork in any other school in Carlo

(17:21):
because I do not, I will not be ableto uphold the ethos and those risks
myself of being fired for that.
I do not want my child.
Being given messages in a religion,I don't, I do not subscribe to and
have no interest in subscribing himto, and I have no interest in him
sitting hint in the back of a classroomfor half an hour, a day on 13 for

(17:42):
more during the sacrament season.
And I don't like him being a guestor a visitor in his own classroom.
Anyway, do you know this all ready?
However, religion aside,the patronage model has an
effect on all sorts of things.
And let's forget the religion for aminute, because these are other things
that are affected by the patronage model.

(18:03):
Both transport insurance,special education.
And more, for example, on bus transport,my child doesn't attend his two
most local primary schools becausethey're both have a religious ethos.
And because the nearest schoolthat matches our conscience is
over six kilometers from our house.
We are entitled to bustransport to the school.
I think it's a shocking waste of money.

(18:23):
I don't use the bus, but I couldparticularly if I was working from home
and has no other job, I could shovethem on a bus in the morning, rather
than walking to his nearest school.
Anyway, school insurance is another model.
One schools are grouped byinsurance companies by their
patron buddy or diocese.
This means that if you happen to go to aschool in one diocese, your school could
be paying for paying more insurance.

(18:45):
Premium.
That a school that is partof on first Patreon, Okta.
Or vice versa.
It's baffling to me that thishappens to different schools,
have different insurance premiums.
And I wouldn't blame you if you didn'tbelieve me, but it is absolutely true.
And I actually did a full podcast episode.
On that.
A couple of, a number of years agoactually wrote to audience who are there.
You have the monopoly oninsurance in Ireland for schools.

(19:08):
And they refuse to divulge thatinformation, which effectively
told me that I was right.
Because if everyone was paying the samelevel of insurance, they would have
just told me, anyhow, I don't know.
I could go on.
I know.
Anon.
And by now, I imagine you cansee why I obsess over patronage.
I can talk about it endlessly.

(19:29):
To me, patronage causes moreproblems than solutions.
And if we scrapped patronage, childrenwould simply go to their nearest
primary school and it would allow thedepartment of education to plan education
properly because they would knowexactly which children will be going to,
which primary school well in advance.
And as you can imagine, this would makethings much easier when it comes to

(19:50):
planning for special education and so on.
Speaking of which.
Special education.
I think if you asked all 3200 primaryschool principals, what their top five
concerns were in the education sector.

(20:11):
I would be shocked if 1%of them said patronage.
On the other hand, if 100% ofthem didn't say special education
somewhere, I wouldn't believe you.
I don't think there is a single primaryschool in Ireland that hasn't been
affected by the collapse of supportsfor children with additional needs

(20:31):
over the last two decades in Ireland.
I dedicated a six part podcast episodeto the subject where I try to figure
out where it all went wrong andthen try to suggest some solutions.
Essentially, there's a huge messthat needs to be fixed very quickly.
As we've already condemned a generationof children who didn't get the resources

(20:53):
on how they needed to manage the educationsystem and beyond the education system.
For me, every classroom needsto have a teaching assistant.
And this is the main thrust of mymanifesto for special education.
As I said in the podcast, if.
If I was to tell you my toptwo things, I would change.
If I were the minister for education,the first is, you know, would be

(21:15):
patronage, but the second wouldbe that every classroom needs
to have a teaching assistant.
And I want to tell you alittle bit more about that.
Because to me, a teachingassistant reminds me of an iPod.
Because before I-pads existed.
We didn't really know.
We really needed them.
We had laptops and we hadphones and I think everybody

(21:38):
was happy enough with those.
And then in 2000, and I can't remember theyear, but it was somewhere in the 2010s.
If I remember correctly or 20 10, 20 11.
And some point in the middle of that,Steve jobs came onto the stage and
introduce the world's, the iPad.
And we didn't know we needed, Iwould see the teaching assistants
as the same thing, the space betweenthe teacher on the SNA and the set.

(22:03):
This is the second adult in the classroomthat helps the teacher that assist
the teacher for lots and for anythingmore or less a data add any, adapt,
the set or SNA aren't going to do andwould save us a lot of time and money.
It's the smaller jobs.
It's the ones where they're helping.
The group of children, it's bringing thechild who, who needs to be, who needs.

(22:26):
Who's a dysregulated out of theclassroom for a minute to, to
calm down or to have a chat.
It is the person who willdo your displays for you.
It is the person who willdo a movement break with.
With a child sit with the child, help thechild access the work in the classroom.
They can do, they can assist the teacher.

(22:47):
And anyway they can, and everyclassroom should have one.
And funnily enough, Every classroom inmany countries in the, in Europe have one.
And it's about time.
We caught up.
Because every classroom needs to havea teaching assistant as well as the
teacher, because low level needs haveto be managed in a classroom and it
can't be done by one person anymore.

(23:09):
And low-level needs today are notthe same as the low level needs.
They once were.
Low-level needs are not really low ona teaching assistant is really needed.
Anyway, after that every school needsto have onsite access to a nurse,
a psychologist, or a counselor,or maybe both and a social worker.
Big schools would probably need morethan one psychologist or counselor.

(23:31):
And I'd also suggest that everyschool would have access to therapies
such as occupational therapy,speech and language therapy,
dieticians play therapies, and so on.
I don't believe it's realistic toexpect one for every single school.
So I would expand the role of thespecial needs assistant to include
basic therapeutic interventions, likeoccupational therapy and speech and

(23:52):
language therapy, which could be whichcould be, it could be, you could get
one of those senior people to advise.
And SNA on the basics on every sooften the occupational therapists
and speech and language therapistswill come into the school to update.
The various interventions and so on.
So I really think these wraparoundservices like nurses, psychologists,

(24:14):
counselors, social workers, speech, andlanguage therapists, all the rest of them.
These are.
I would say.
More.
Really important because if you cancatch children before they fall off
the cliff, because that is the onlyway they're supported these days.
I think in the long run you wouldsave a huge amount of money.
And to me, the above alonewould fix a huge number of

(24:37):
issues with special education.
I also think of my manifesto.
That we would have to have a bit of a lookat special classes and whether they're
actually a positive solution in schools.
We've simply just opened them up withoutthought research on special passes,
suggest they may not be the right tool.
What about the role of specialschools and what do we need to do
to ensure their support or property?

(24:57):
I'd have to have a look at that.
In my manifesto.
I think it says something thatagain is poorly supported.
We need to give special schoolswhat they need instead of
offering little breadcrumbs.
I know the IPP and are very proudof giving the administrative
status to deputy principals.
And I'm sure it's welcome.
But that is not the solution.

(25:20):
To special schools.
It is not, the solution is noteven close to the solution.
It's breadcrumbs.
I would also, I think we should lookat the full inclusion model, but it
would also need to be properly resourcedbecause if it isn't, it will fail.
In my podcast, I said specialeducation will be the scandal
of the 21st century in Ireland.
And we will talk about it in thesame breath as we do the sexual abuse

(25:43):
and physical abuse crimes of theCatholic church in the 20th century.
We need to fix special education now,and it's going to take a lot of thought.
And a lot of money.
Look at that segue intomy third manifesto piece.
And that is.
Funding.

(26:06):
One of the most curious pieces offunding every budget day in Ireland
is the grant that is given tohorse racing and Greyhound racing.
And this year it was 99.1 million Euro.
The justification for this is thatwithout that almost 100 million Euro
grant, the Greyhound industry wouldcollapse and it needs to be propped up.

(26:31):
Now, whatever your opinion on Greyhounddrives racing is my point is that when
it comes to other sectors in Ireland,The funding that is given is supposed
to ensure that the sector can function.
And when it comes to education,it seems to be an exception.
Because we don't prop it up at all.

(26:54):
And while one might argue they haven'theard of a school going bankrupt.
This is generally because of theGoodwill of parents propping up the
system through fees, fundraising,volunteering, and donations.
There are very few, if any primary schoolsin Ireland that are properly financially
resourced, most primary schools have tomake choices between hiring a keener on a

(27:18):
caretaker because they can't afford both.
And whatever one they choose,most schools can only afford
one on a very part-time basis.
Even very big schools, smaller schools.
Haven't got a hope.
Most primary schools have to hope thatthe weather remains warm enough, so they
don't have to switch on the heating andeven if they do, and even when they do,

(27:42):
they often can only heat the buildingfor a very short time and asked the
children and staff to wear extra layers.
I don't know too many other publicservices that require that most primary
schools have to wait until their essentialservices such as boilers and alarms
fully break down because they don't get.
N a funding to keep them maintained.

(28:03):
And when they fully break down, theycan apply for emergency funding, but
there's no guarantee of that until theyhave to threaten to close the school.
And many schools ring the departmentof education so much that it's
really hard to find the phone number.
Now, I think you actually have toemail them or use some online form.
And three days later, whileyou have a broken alarm, you

(28:23):
have to send children home.
And I don't know, it's mad.
There's a famous saying that teachingis the only profession in the world
where you steal from your home inorder to be able to do your work.
Most teachers are working fromlaptops that they're either their
own, or are several years out of date.
Teachers have to buy basic resourceslike whiteboard, markers, crayons,

(28:44):
and everything else because schoolsdon't have the budget to pay for them.
I've actually heard of some teachersthat buy food and clothes for children
in their class, from their own pockets,because teachers are good people in.
General, but they do not have the moneyto help the children in their class.
So they end up doing it, but paying forstuff like that from their own pockets.

(29:04):
To me, the funding model isprimarily linked to the patronage
model where the department ofeducation provides for education.
And if we took that word for,we could see a system where the
state would be responsible forfunding, everything a school needed.
Whether that's the utility bills,transport for swimming, insurance,
school lunches, caretakers, and so on.

(29:28):
Interestingly, there are nineprimary schools in Ireland that
have this actual model where thestate pays for all this stuff.
And they are called muddle schools.
And I would suggest if youdon't know what model schools
are, is that you look them up.
They have a veryinteresting model, indeed.
And in fact, such an interestingmodel, I think it's worth exploring.

(29:48):
I may do a podcast on the modelschools, their history, and
how they work and function.
Their patron is the minister for educationand they are a very good model to show how
the system could work in terms of funding.
But possibly little owls.
However for now, if we're goingto have to get funding from
the department of education.

(30:10):
Essentially, it's pretty simple.
You should treat us like Ray hounds.
So that are my three.
Malachi and manifesto pieces.
I wonder what you think of them.
I didn't actually talk aboutteacher shortages, so maybe I
should add that is my fourth one.
I would say that it isn't justabout paying teachers more,

(30:32):
although that would help.
We are competing with teachers whoare going out for better conditions,
but we're also need to be looking atother reasons why we have a shortage of
teachers because we are training enoughteachers to keep the system going.
It's just, teachersare leaving the system.
I think some people think they're allabroad making something themselves

(30:53):
in Saudi Arabia and told third Dubai.
Anyway, I don't thinkthey're in Saudi Arabia.
They're in Dubai and allsorts of other countries.
But a lot of them are leavingand doing other things.
I was at the IPP N this year and theamount of teachers, former registered
teachers who are now working in private.
Businesses.
It was quite surprising to me.
They keep their teaching council number.

(31:15):
In case they want to go back.
But a lot of them are not working inthe private sector and doing very well.
And I think that's great for them.
The thing is most, most people, ofmy generation started in teaching and
probably will end in teaching most peopleof this generation that are outworking now
have several jobs throughout their career.
And far Paige them.

(31:35):
I think it's one of thereasons why we have a shortage.
We are competing with otherjobs now people would find
working from home much more.
Attractive.
Than that say the holidays that wegot because fact I was chatting to
somebody who was working in Spain wasbasically in Spain for the winter.

(31:55):
And was working from other holidayhome and going to the swimming pool and
having a lovely time doing their job.
And they flew over every month orso to Ireland, to the office, to.
Tell everyone they realize,I think, I don't know, but.
We are competing with much moreinteresting work conditions.
Working from home allows peopleto mind their children, if they're

(32:17):
sick and all the rest of it.
I think the teacher shortageisn't as easy as money.
I think there's a lot going on patronage.
Falls into it.
Special education falls into a two.
Because again, There are reasonswhy people don't go into teaching.
And not because of the childrenparticularly, but because of the systems
that make it so difficult to teach inprimary schools now, So there you, how

(32:40):
much my election manifesto with a bonus?
One on the teacher shortage.
I hope you've enjoyedmy election manifesto.
Vote for me.
No, I'm only joking.
I'm not going for action.
Don't worry.
I really.
I hope you've enjoyed this.
And if I do become the minister foreducation at some point, and now, you
know what I'll be doing, so now younow if I do go, then you can vote for
me and hopefully I'll get all thosethings over the line just for you.

(33:05):
Thanks so much for listening.
The chat to you again soon.
All the very best.
Bye-bye.