The Irish Government allocated €9 million in the budget this week for a fund for schools to purchase pouches for mobile phones for pupils aimed at minimising disruption
The Taoiseach has attacked Sinn Fein "hypocrisy" over opposition to a mobile phone pouch scheme for schools.
READ MORE - 'Scandalous waste of money' - Mary Lou McDonald urges Taoiseach to scrap €9m phone pouch allocation The Teachers’ Union of Ireland has suggested the money for the scheme "could have been better directed" in schools. "No pouch is going to be forced on any school, forced on any principal, forced on any child, but Minister for Education Norma Foley and the government have quite rightly worked with schools and prioritised the issue of safety around mobile phones, social media, online media, cyber bullying and the disruption that the mobile phone can have to the school day."We have over 700 secondary schools in Ireland.
TUI president David Waters said it is "frustrating in the extreme" that the funding "was not directed towards tackling the teacher recruitment and retention crisis or enhancing the pastoral care framework available to students through more posts of responsibility". "Alternatively, it could have been directed towards providing a scheme of incremental credit for those teachers currently teaching in jurisdictions such as Australia and Dubai who are understandably reluctant to return home to an education system that does not acknowledge their overseas teaching experience.
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