Minister for Education – It's black and it's white

I see our esteemed Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, is still making idiotic statements in relation to class sizes.

Last Tuesday (1st item) she repeated an assertion originally made here that the number of students in a class has no bearing on the quality of education received. Here’s what she had to say on this occasion:

“All the international studies show that there’s no correlation at all between the number of children in a class or the investment that goes in and the outcome.”

The Minister apparently believes that students struggling in an overcrowded and under-resourced inner city school receive the same quality of education as students attending well resourced, well equipped schools.

So why bother with making commitments to reduce class sizes, she was asked.

“Because we recognise, for the younger children in particular, it can have an impact.”

So, the number of students in a class has an impact and it hasn’t an impact on the quality of education.

And we wonder why this minister is first in line to tell us she believes every lie coming out of Bertie Ahern’s mouth.