Providing a 'Minimum Education'
In spite of the fact that Irish laws and the regulations flowing from them make numerous mentions of the need to provide a 'minimum education', or more specifically a 'minimum education, moral, intellectual and social', at no point is the meaning of this precisely defined in law.
The Guidelines on the Assessment of Education in Places Other Than Recognised Schools does contain broad outlines of its meaning and of what the assessors will be looking for in this regard.
These say that any education provided should
- Suit to the age, ability, aptitude and personality of the child
- Be responsive to the child's individual needs, take the child's interests into account, and ensure that the child's potential is addressed
- Address the immediate and prospective needs of the child, in the context of the cultural, economic and social environment
- Provides a reasonably balanced range of learning experiences, so that no one aspect of the child's learning is emphasised to the exclusion of others
- Develop the personal and social skills of the child and prepare him/her for the responsibilities of citizenship
- Contribute to the moral development of the child
- Ensure the development of basic skills to prepare the child to participate in society and everyday life
- Provide opportunities for the child to develop his/her intellectual capacities and understanding
The guidelines also list basic skills that any educational method proposed should address.
- All education methods should:
- Reflect the child's age and stage of development
- Reflect the child's personality, interests and ability
- Ensure that the child is developing understanding, skills and knowledge, to his/her potential so that he/she may participate in society and everyday life.
- Language and literacy education should:
- Provide for the acquisition of listening and speaking skills
- Provide for vocabulary development, comprehension and reading fluency
- Include writing skills, with grammar, spelling and punctuation sufficient to convey meaning
- Numeracy education should provide for learning about the
following
- Numbers
- Number operations
- Measures in money, time, length, area, weight, and capacity