{"id":357,"date":"2012-01-27T20:50:51","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T20:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/deputy-sean-crowe-attends-irish-primary-principals-network-conference-in-dublin\/"},"modified":"2012-01-27T20:50:51","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T20:50:51","slug":"deputy-sean-crowe-attends-irish-primary-principals-network-conference-in-dublin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/deputy-sean-crowe-attends-irish-primary-principals-network-conference-in-dublin\/","title":{"rendered":"Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe attends Irish Primary Principals\u2019 Network Conference in Dublin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: small;\"><strong>Deputy Se\u00e1n <span class=\"il\">Crowe<\/span> attends Irish Primary Principals\u2019 Network Conference in Dublin<br \/><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Education Spokesperson Deputy Se\u00e1n <span class=\"il\">Crowe<\/span> attended this week\u2019s Irish Primary Principals\u2019 Network (IPPN) conference in the City West Hotel,Saggart, County\u00a0Dublin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Commending the organisers of the two day event, Mr <span class=\"il\">Crowe<\/span> said the conference provided an opportunity for the 1100 plus  participants to engage with the Education Minister Ruair\u00ed Quinn on a  range of issues and hear the views of internationally recognised  academics and educationalists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Deputy Se\u00e1n <span class=\"il\">Crowe<\/span> said:<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\"> \u201cIt  is clear that there is wide-spread concern amongst teachers that  continuing cuts to the primary school sector is undermining their  capacity to deliver the school curriculum and ensure the children under  their care receive a decent education.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u201cThere was a silent protest inside the  conference centre by principals who are very concerned that  budget\u00a0changes to the staffing schedule will force many small rural  schools to close.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u201cMinister Quinn needs to come to terms with  this issue and it is wrong that the Government\u2019s only priority seems to  be to introduce cuts in order to reduce spending. Small schools are at  the heart of many rural communities and alternatives to closures,agreed  amalgamations or clustering and\u00a0other solutions\u00a0need to\u00a0be considered  such as the possibility of repopulating existing schools rather than  forcing pupils down the route of\u00a0constantly expanding larger schools.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u201cForcing schools to amalgamate is bad enough,  but to push ahead with this policy whenever little or no provision is  being made by the Department to ensure new building are in place\u00a0 is a  recipe for disaster.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u201cAny evaluation of small schools cannot be  based on cost alone. Other basic\u00a0criteria such as the quality of the  educational experience, ensuring stable enrolment trends, the financial  position of a school, accessibility and maintaining strong links with  the community must all be considered.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe attends Irish Primary Principals\u2019 Network Conference in Dublin Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Education Spokesperson Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe attended this week\u2019s Irish Primary Principals\u2019 Network (IPPN) conference in the City West Hotel,Saggart, County\u00a0Dublin. Commending the organisers of the two day event, Mr Crowe said the conference provided an opportunity for the 1100 plus participants to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}