Independent News & Media withdraws token scheme
February 1, 2010 by Joe Fogarty · Leave a Comment
By Colin Coyle
Sunday Times 31st January 2010
Independent News & Media has suspended a commercial promotion for primary schools after objections from the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO).
Building for the Future, a promotion that originally required pupils to collect tokens to enter a competition, will now be altered so that schools do not have to buy newspapers to take part, the media group said.
Read the story in the Sunday Times website.
Primary Times - Who Needs a Distributor??
September 27, 2009 by Joe Fogarty · Leave a Comment
It’s that time of year when hundreds of schools will receive an unsolicited bundle of Primary Times magazines, full with advertisements aimed at children and their parents. Unlike ordinary publications, Primary Times does not have a distributor or retail outlet through which to deliver its advertising - it uses the school secretary and teachers to hand out the magazine, for free, and place it into childrens’ school bags.
The role of a school secretary is not to distribute commercial magazines aimed at children and parents. We recommend that schools refuse to accept unsolicited deliveries of Primary Times, refuse to incur the cost of recycling them and demand that they be returned to sender.
Primary Times is of negligible educational relevance and heavily orientated towards commercial advertising. It does not belong in schools and should be exposed as exploiting schools to deliver cynically packages advertising to children in class.
Token Gestures Cash In On Primary Schools
January 12, 2009 by Joe Fogarty · Leave a Comment
As the 2009 school year gets underway marketers have lost no time in targeting Irish schools with commercial schemes. Designed to exploit the lack of funding available to schools and maximise sales at a typically lean time of year, these schemes are discriminatory, self-serving and pressurising. The Campaign for Commercial-Free Education condemns advertising promotions which seek to boost profits at the expense of school time and energy.
Irish Daily Mail Free Kits for Kids:
SuperValu Kids in Action: Read more
CCFE lodge complaint against RTE for promoting Google marketing scheme.
December 2, 2008 by Joe Fogarty · Leave a Comment
The Campaign for Commercial-Free Education has today complained to RTE and the BCI about a report on children’s news show News2Day (19 Nov 2008) about the “Doodle 4 Google” promotion which seeks to make their corporate logo the focus of art lessons for school children as young as 5 years of age.
Internet giant Google has made an unsolicted approach to schools, urging teachers to have school children from Junior Infants upwards to design a new version of their corporate logo. The entry guidelines read “Please ensure that the Google logo is clearly visible and recognisable.” “Write the word ‘Google’ on the board and show the pupils a print out of the logo template.”
To view the report for yourself please click here. Read more
Against Commercialism in Education
November 5, 2008 by Mark C · Leave a Comment
- Breaking the Barcodes
Nov. 5th sees the world’s first attempted co-ordinated action against commercialisation in education (including against fees for education). So far, activists in 22 countries have signed up to have mass co-ordinated events. This essay seeks to look at some of the issues involved in commercialism in education.
Since we have not reached the level of commercialism in our schools that pervade an education system such as the American one, perhaps now is the time to begin the fight against the commercialism that is present, before it becomes too much to be countered.
Students React to Tesco’s Computers in Schools Scheme
June 15, 2008 by Mark C · Leave a Comment
I gave my Higher Level Fifth Year English class the article “Opposing Tesco’s ‘Computers for Schools’ Voucher Scheme” for the reading comprehension section of their summer exam. Question 3 asked “What are your thoughts on these schemes?”
Here is a selection of student responses:
Student 1
I feel this is hugely unfair and no parent should be put under pressure to gain facilities for their school.
Student 2
To be honest, I never really thought about this voucher scheme, but from reading this extract, I now believe it to be an outrage [...] The Tesco company should be ashamed of themselves.
Student 3
I believe there is something corrupt about the way in which supermarkets operate to gain sales. [...] It shocks and appalls me. Read more
