#edchatIE meets with the MInister for Education and Skills, Ireland - Sept 29th, 8.30-9.30pm (Irish time)

On Monday 29th September (2014) from 8.30-9.30pm, Irish educators and all those interested in Irish education got the chance to be part of an online discussion with Ireland's Minister for Education and Skills, Jan O'Sullivan T.D. (@JanOSullivan on Twitter). This was a more focused discussion, which aimed to cover four questions/topics in the one night, rather than the usual single topic. Thank you to all who suggested questions/topics and who voted on the topics and also to the Minister for making herself available to take part.

Click here to open/download the transcript from the discussion.

All of the questions/topics were suggested and voted on through the #edchatie hashtag on Twitter and here's what they were:

Q.1 -> Third Level Maintenance Grant and its protection in the upcoming budget (263 votes)

Q.2 -> Are the government going to take any measures to assist the numbers of unemployed teachers? (176 votes)

Q.3 -> Junior Cycle Reform - opportunities to progress reform, revised time lines, consideration of union proposals (153 votes)

Q.4 -> Class size - especially in the Infant Classes (152 votes)

In order to keep the conversation flowing as much as possible, here's how the discussion was planned:

• At 8.30pm, we'll hold the usual introductions and then quickly move on to posting Q.1 for discussion.
• When discussing Q.1, please make sure that you include the hashtag #edchatie as well as the text "Q.1" in your tweets.
• After 15 minutes and because we have four questions/topics to discuss, we'll move on to Q.2.
• Again, when discussing Q.2. please make sure to include the hashtag #edchatie as well as the text "Q.2" in your tweets at this time.
• By 9pm we'll move on to Q.3 and then finish off with Q.4 for the final 15 minutes of the discussion.

Remember -> All tweets should contain the hashtag #edchatie and the relevant question number in order to be collated into the transcript of the discussion, which will be published online the net day.

Thanks to all who took part online.