Op-Ed: As a UC professor, I support the strikers. Our schools shouldn’t have let it come to this.
The world has no idea what is actually going on in the so-called “Bertie Ahern’s of the world.” Yes, there’s a lot of anger about the government but the real anger is directed at individuals who don’t pay what is due for what they get from the government.
There have been a lot of statements this week and I am trying to distill a bunch of the most relevant.
The Minister of Education should be fired because he has lost the ability to govern.
There is no excuse for allowing a university to be run like a business rather than a school.
There is no excuse for a strike to occur. The students are not fighting for the students. What the students want is the government to actually meet their demands.
There is no excuse for the teachers at the University of Limerick to not be on strike even in a country where they have so few protections.
It is time to put an end to this situation and get back to the basics of education and respect. There needs to be a united front and a government that understands these things.
This isn’t about the students striking. It’s not about the UCU and UCD students. This is about putting the students at the centre of the debate. It’s about ensuring that the teachers who do fight are the ones who get most of the attention.
If Mr. Ahern wants to have an impact on the lives of people in Limerick and Cork, he should get out and meet and hear from the people who live and work in those areas.
If what he wants to do is to save a few hundred thousand pounds and get the country’s largest university back on track, he should have been out there meeting the people of Limerick and Cork.
These issues should be dealt with in terms of education and not politics. We’re not talking about whether it is moral to fight for union rights. The issue is whether or not our country is getting proper education.
There is no