Senator hits out at teacher-rating website
Senator Mary O’Rourke has slammed a US-hosted website on which Irish students rate their teachers, it emerged today.
The Fianna Fáil leader in the Seanad said pupils should make an appointment with their teachers and discuss their feelings with them.
“Things should be said to a person’s face. People scurrying around talking about people is a very wrong way to do your business,” said the former teacher and minister for education.
“You seek an appointment with your teacher. I can’t stand people who scurry and mutter in corners and don’t say out what they want to say.”
The site has angered principals and teachers’ unions because students are free to make unfavourable comments about teachers.
Mrs O’Rourke jokingly suggested setting up similar ’Rate my TD’ or ’Rate my Senator’ websites.
She was speaking on the matter during today’s Order of Business after it was earlier raised by Fine Gael’s Senator Brian Hayes, also a former teacher.
Plans by secondary school managers and the Teachers’ Union of Ireland to shut down the controversial site were dropped last week following legal advice.
Lawyers said court action would not succeed because the site is hosted in the US.
The Data Protection Commissioner is also unable to act for the same reason.
Irish students now post more comments about their teachers on the site than their counterparts in the US and Canada combined.
To date it has recorded comments about 37,012 teachers in 1,594 Irish schools.
Irish students are posting an average of about 6,000 comments each day.
