Eight senior teachers at Dublin secondary schools went on trips costing €28,000 to a tropical island in the Caribbean to attend a weeklong ‘diversity, inclusion and mindfulness’ training retreat.
Two of the EU-funded trips – one last November and one in February – were organised by the Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education Training Board to the beautiful Dutch island of Aruba, just off the coast of Venezuela.
The EU Erasmus-plus programme paid €3,467 for each teacher to fly 7,100km and stay in a villa for the six-day long €560 per person courses at the sun-kissed location, records released to the Irish Daily Mail under the Freedom of Information Act show.
The three principals and two deputy principals who flew across the Atlantic last November spent their first evening ‘mingling and sharing EU delicacies’ to get to know other people on the course before embarking on their 35 hours of training.
Flights ranged from between €1,080 and €1,270 per person return, as well as one teacher who had their flight changed from the November trip to February for an additional €215.
An individual support grant of up to €1,250 per person was also available for daily expenses on the island.
A course named ‘Boosting Teachers’ Resilience, Positive Thinking & Problem Solving’ trained three participants to ‘develop compassion and empathy for others and project it on to students’ and to ‘address cultural clashes and migration-related challenges through critical thinking’.
‘We will learn to make stress our friend, focus on positive affirmations, learn how to let go of negative self-talk,’ the course objectives state.
The Erasmus application suggested that Aruban language teaching could provide ‘insight’ into teaching Irish.
The venue for the EU-funded retreat was Aruba in the Caribbean Sea
Most of the 110,000 Aruban population is made up of mixed European, indigenous and African descent, the vast majority of whom speak a Portuguese-based creole language with some Spanish, Dutch and English speakers.
Despite Aruba’s tropical location near the equator, the multi-ethnic island is an overseas territory of the Netherlands and is eligible for EU funding.
The Caribbean island enjoys temperatures in the high 20s even during winter, when the groups visited.
One course features a workshop on empathy, two hours of mindfulness techniques, and a ‘guided mindfulness walk’. The ‘Boosting Teachers’ Resilience, Positive Thinking & Problem Solving’ course also includes role-play on ‘conflict resolution in diverse classrooms’, and, on the final day of training ‘a reflection circle’ for two hours.
All course groups spent an afternoon shadowing teachers at a local school. One leadership programme included a bus tour and a digital ‘scavenger hunt’.
Teachers from schools in various locations across Co. Dublin received travel grants of almost €3,500 each, which included allowances for accommodation, flights, expenses and fees.
The Erasmus-plus programme has a €26billion budget for 2021 to 2027, or €3.7billion per year.
Five staff members who attended training in November stayed in the exclusive community of Merlot Villas, where they shared a six-bedroom property with a pool, balcony and firepit.
It cost €3,890 or almost €800 per person for the duration of the stay, while the location and price of accommodation for the three principals on the February trip was not included in the documents received under FOI request.
Those who attended the trip were required to complete a form detailing what they learned and would incorporate into their teaching style.
Two teachers from one Dublin secondary school submitted near-identical feedback forms despite attending different courses, both claiming a ‘renewed commitment to fostering empathy’.
Documents show that Dublin and Dún Laoighaire Education and Training Board agreed partaking teaching staff were able to use the trip as part of their ‘Croke Park hours’ – 33 additional hours of work per year dedicated to non-classroom obligations.
The board told the Mail yesterday that it supports continuous professional development and that, ‘as with all Erasmus+ courses, the teachers’ travel, courses and accommodation expenses were funded by Erasmus+.’
‘These were accredited professional development programmes of standard Erasmus+ duration, irrespective of location, attended by educational professionals from 13 EU countries,’ a spokeswoman said.
The Department of Further and Higher Education was contacted for comment.