Minister is hoping teachers, parents and students can provide the "vision thing" for free, writes Emmet Oliver
There is a lot of blank space in the report released yesterday by the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey.
The document, Your Education System, is short on prescriptive solutions and long on meandering passages about making Ireland a "research-driven economy".
In a rare and welcome display of ministerial humility, Mr Dempsey admits he does not have all the answers and neither do his officials. Instead the Minister is hoping ordinary teachers, parents, students and academics can provide the "vision thing" for free.
The Minister is unapologetic about all the blank space in the report. "This is a work in progress. We need your help to complete it," he says.
Like countless Ministers before him, Mr Dempsey is very familiar with the views of the unions - ASTI, TUI and INTO. He has no doubt been endlessly briefed on the position of other interest groups in the education system. Consequently he is now trying to reach what he calls "the Irish people as a whole".
According to the document: "This process is grounded in the fundamental belief that education is the property of the Irish people as a whole. It is not the property of any government, any minister, any department or any interest group".
This is commendable. During the ASTI dispute in particular, the views of rank-and-file teachers were rarely heard above the din produced by some union leaders.
For too long, parents have had little say in national policy debates. In the third-level sector, the views of ordinary staff and academics rarely reach the national stage.
Mr Dempsey's listening exercise should address these problems. The Minister wants to hear views on all the contentious issues of our time: the role of schools, under-performing teachers, exams, parents in the education system, life-long learning and, of course, investments levels.
With 16 national workshops planned, Mr Dempsey will have no shortage of views to reflect on afterwards. Shelves in the Department of Education must be groaning at this stage with green papers, NCCA reports, consultative documents, discussion papers and policy proposals.
The TUI general secretary Mr Jim Dorney, said yesterday: "At this stage, one would have to wonder why there are so many policy papers, reports and documents floating around when implementation and real action would clearly be a more effective use of resources."