Friday 20 March 2009

Set your examinations in Irish

Roll-up, roll-up come see the show that never ends! Never mind The Simpsons, Northern Ireland has its own long-running comedy show, called education. Each and every episode is packed with slapstick set-pieces, ridiculous jokes and poker-faced straight men and women who are the butt of jibes.


Heck, it makes the surreal animation of life in a small US town seem calm and reasonable.
To recap, some of the latest season highlights from the NI Education show would take an essay a week, so a précis will have to do.


First up is the claim that under equality law grammar schools wanting to set their own entrance tests will have to produce them in Irish otherwise parents in Irish Medium primary schools would have a potential legal case.


Next up is the complaint from the Catholic Church that the new Education and Skills Authority would remove any say the Church might have had.


Then the mainstream churches called, together with the Education Committee, for a three-year delay to help everyone settle themselves, and use a transfer test until then.


And then….so it goes on. Funny thing is that the only people not laughing at the education sitcom are the parents of primary schoolchildren, and the children themselves.

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