Virtual Methodist

Currently there’s is a lot of tension concerning the future of education in this country… First there's the debacle concerning the local post-primary transfer tests, which condemns kids to up to 5 tests over the next 4 Saturdays in alien surroundings... and asking their parents to pay for the privilege. Then there's the likely threefold increase in third level education tuition fees, resulting in the protests, peaceful and otherwise, in London today. In both, people from poorer backgrounds will undoubtedly be affected more than others… Yes there is provision for those who recieve "free school meals" to have transfer tests waived, and there will, we are told, be no up-front costs for people going to university and graduates will only have to pay back their "loan" when their earnings rise above a certain level, but this ignores some key facts about those from some disadvantaged areas. First, not everyone takes up the option of free school meals because of the ...

This is Virtual Methodist's electronic equivalent of those glossy supplements you get in weekend newspapers that take a full week to get through... at least in this household... Its a few of the more developed stories I've come across this week which are too long for a FB post and which I haven't had time or inclination to post on myself. The first involves story of Mary Bale, a 45-year-old bank clerk, and former church choir singer,dropping a cat into a wheelie bin... Now given what happened to our cat while on holiday (and I'm not blogging about that yet... still too angry) I can understand some of the outrage, but I'm with Will Crawley who is bemused by the wholesale hue and cry in the media given the other, bigger issues in the news. One of those issues has dominated Will's blog, and the Northern Ireland news this week, that being the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman's report into the Claudy bombing back in the very darkest days of our most recent Troub...