The cost per secondary school pupil isn’t 9 euro (which would be insanely good value), it’s more like 15 or 16 euro, but that is an incredibly reasonable price for a magnetised, remote-lock/unlock phone pouch.
Is this one of those times where the news reports on something you actually understand so you realise how completely flimsy most coverage is? Oh god
Elbon on
Dumb dum dum de dum, stupid outrage over stupid nothing.
SeanB2003 on
Complaining about the level of spend on this is silly. A quick Google will show that this is around the going rate for this service in other education systems.
Alternatives being proposed, “put them in a ziplock bag”, or “leave them in lockers” have obvious problems in wasting teacher time administrating them or well overestimate the security of school lockers. We were always told not to leave anything valuable in them, they’re not designed to be super secure.
There are valid complaints as to why the policy is being proposed at all, but that’s separate from the cost of implementing it. If you feel it’s worth doing then there’s a price for doing it properly.
Available-Lemon9075 on
Feels strange to say but I support the government on this one
rmc on
Kids are gonna get a cheap second hand phone for the pouch.
dbdlc88 on
0.08% of the education budget. Obviously it’s a positive in general to limits kids’ social media and phone use.
But, even if you’re mad about the money, this saves money for the taxpayer.
>The study’s co-author also noted that when applied across the entirety of the U.S. college population, the introduction of the social media platform may have contributed to more than 300,000 new cases of depression. If such sizable effects occurred in college-aged youth, these findings raise serious concerns about the risk of harm from social media exposure for children and adolescents who are at a more vulnerable stage of brain development.
[https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf](https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf)
The HSE is already over-stretched, especially when it comes to mental health.
>Over 100 children wait up to five years for primary care psychology assessment in Cork and Kerry
Spending €9m on something that improves the mental health of kids, but also means they’re less likely to need psychiatric services for depression, self-harm, and body image issues seems like money well spent.
GroundbreakingToe717 on
This is such a waste of money. The pouches will be rank after a while and kids won’t put their phones in it.
Why is the teacher now doing jobs which then parents should do. Lazy parents.
Street_Bicycle_1265 on
This is another pet project for Norma Foley.
It’s an easy win that she can focus on with the money allocated to her department. The core education system might be crumbling at the edges, but she gets to attach her name to a few good headlines. It was the same with the free books scheme.
Smart ministers don’t touch the hard issues. The same thing happens in health. People literally dying in hospitals due to staff shortages, but ministers will invest in relatively trivial schemes such as free healthcare for under sixs.
CuileannA on
All the psychologist coming out of the woodwork to give their opinion on screen time and it’s effects on attention while logged into reddit on a device.
This is a waste of money.
Scannerk on
I thought it was money paid towards icloud or something..
LogDeep7567 on
Seeing as social media and smartphones are leading causes of anxiety and mental health issues in young people I am in favour of anything that limits their usage. Let’s not forget the knock on effects that mental health issues have on the health system, productivity at work, people on benefits long term etc. Continuing to throw money at increasing benefits, health care spend etc without addressing the root causes of the pressure on these systems is why we are in such a mess.
I’m not saying this is foolproof either but it’s a step in the right direction and 9m is nothing in the grand scheme of things
11 Comments
Gav Reilly is fine, even good most of the time but then he comes out with some absolute gobshitery [like this](https://x.com/gavreilly/status/1841217898146136103).
The cost per secondary school pupil isn’t 9 euro (which would be insanely good value), it’s more like 15 or 16 euro, but that is an incredibly reasonable price for a magnetised, remote-lock/unlock phone pouch.
Is this one of those times where the news reports on something you actually understand so you realise how completely flimsy most coverage is? Oh god
Dumb dum dum de dum, stupid outrage over stupid nothing.
Complaining about the level of spend on this is silly. A quick Google will show that this is around the going rate for this service in other education systems.
Alternatives being proposed, “put them in a ziplock bag”, or “leave them in lockers” have obvious problems in wasting teacher time administrating them or well overestimate the security of school lockers. We were always told not to leave anything valuable in them, they’re not designed to be super secure.
There are valid complaints as to why the policy is being proposed at all, but that’s separate from the cost of implementing it. If you feel it’s worth doing then there’s a price for doing it properly.
Feels strange to say but I support the government on this one
Kids are gonna get a cheap second hand phone for the pouch.
0.08% of the education budget. Obviously it’s a positive in general to limits kids’ social media and phone use.
But, even if you’re mad about the money, this saves money for the taxpayer.
>The study’s co-author also noted that when applied across the entirety of the U.S. college population, the introduction of the social media platform may have contributed to more than 300,000 new cases of depression. If such sizable effects occurred in college-aged youth, these findings raise serious concerns about the risk of harm from social media exposure for children and adolescents who are at a more vulnerable stage of brain development.
[https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf](https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf)
The HSE is already over-stretched, especially when it comes to mental health.
>Over 100 children wait up to five years for primary care psychology assessment in Cork and Kerry
>[https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41426218.html](https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41426218.html)
Spending €9m on something that improves the mental health of kids, but also means they’re less likely to need psychiatric services for depression, self-harm, and body image issues seems like money well spent.
This is such a waste of money. The pouches will be rank after a while and kids won’t put their phones in it.
Why is the teacher now doing jobs which then parents should do. Lazy parents.
This is another pet project for Norma Foley.
It’s an easy win that she can focus on with the money allocated to her department. The core education system might be crumbling at the edges, but she gets to attach her name to a few good headlines. It was the same with the free books scheme.
Smart ministers don’t touch the hard issues. The same thing happens in health. People literally dying in hospitals due to staff shortages, but ministers will invest in relatively trivial schemes such as free healthcare for under sixs.
All the psychologist coming out of the woodwork to give their opinion on screen time and it’s effects on attention while logged into reddit on a device.
This is a waste of money.
I thought it was money paid towards icloud or something..
Seeing as social media and smartphones are leading causes of anxiety and mental health issues in young people I am in favour of anything that limits their usage. Let’s not forget the knock on effects that mental health issues have on the health system, productivity at work, people on benefits long term etc. Continuing to throw money at increasing benefits, health care spend etc without addressing the root causes of the pressure on these systems is why we are in such a mess.
I’m not saying this is foolproof either but it’s a step in the right direction and 9m is nothing in the grand scheme of things