 The USI last week announced plans to campaign for better conditions for student teachers on placement. Along with various trade unions, they are calling for student teachers to receive payment while on placement to cover expenses such as travel, materials and accommodation. We ask student teachers on the St Patrick's campus what the main struggles are while on placement. We go out, we do eight weeks of placement, that's two months. The teacher that we teach for the full day and the teacher is still getting paid their full wage and the student teachers don't get anything. We still have to pay for our transportation, it's going to be in Dublin so we still have to pay for accommodation and then we still have to pay for our own resources. Basically when you're on placement you don't have like you're doing all your preparation for your lessons in the evenings and then you're going in teaching the next day so I don't know how people manage with like part-time jobs and stuff like I never was able to do it, was able to work through placement. Resources and everything is costly. Printing here, you put your point in about nearly five or every day just cover yourself so that's twenty-five or again like so it's all adding up like that's the main thing I suppose. That annoyed me for a while and still annoyed me, nothing's been done about it. DCUSU along with a number of other colleges are highlighting the campaign and are asking student teachers to fill out an online survey. DCUSU Vice President for Education and Placement Matt Davie is heavily involved in the campaign and is urging student teachers to voice their opinions. USA contacted me about the campaign and how I want to get involved and to be honest I jumped on it, I really wanted to do it, being a teacher myself it really affected me and being kind of representative for the biggest kind of cohort of teachers in the country in the Institute of Education on Pat's campus. We have the largest number of teachers there so it's really an issue that affects our students and so I wanted to be leading this with USA. I've done a survey myself with the four-tier Beds that went out so my class, we got a great response to that around forty or fifty percent of the course replied to that so we've gotten statistics from that as well and I've included them in the proposal that I'm currently making. I'm not sure about the closing date for the USA one but I presume it's going to be very similar information that I've already covered from my own survey that I did over the summer and so we're going to incorporate that into the proposal as well when we get the results from that I'm not sure the closing date though. Colleen Brady, DCU TV News Often named as one of the ugliest buildings in Dublin, the Fibsborough Shopping Centre is getting a makeover. New apartments that are expected to accommodate three hundred and forty students are set to be developed in Fibsborough as part of the 15 million euro redevelopment of the 1960 Shopping Centre. The scheme was approved by the council this month and was welcomed by DCU Student Union. Yeah, new shop accommodation is always welcome in Fibsborough so close. It's fantastic for us but the only thing I worry about is the pricing of it. I'm looking for compared to the one in the military that is for students but it's two hundred and forty nine euro a week so what I'd be worried about is would it be priced for a reasonable amount for a student or would it be overpriced? The price of student accommodation however is a concern. Seem as recent developments have rooms in Dublin costing a minimum of two hundred and forty nine euro a week. It's absolutely not fair like from my experience of renting I'm really really struggling especially at times like Christmas when everything is so much more expensive gifts for my presence and all this but I think the sad fact of it is is that if you go to college in Dublin Dublin is just an expensive place to live anyway not just for students for anyone buying them or renting so yeah I mean I think unfortunately just living in the capital is always going to be a bit more expensive. I'm looking since I still live at home but I have to commute to college daily and I find that expensive so I can't imagine how people are affording to live like away from home because they have to pay for their food and everything as well. My man pays for all that for me. I know I wouldn't be able to afford it anyway. It's definitely way too expensive and even now with all the new accommodation centres popping up they're like extortionate still so even though there's more and more becoming available it's still out of reach of a lot of people and it's definitely taken advantage of students as well because they know that they're desperate for accommodation and would do anything to be near their college so even though there's more now and it seems like we could do more for it I mean they could do more in terms of pricing and making it more affordable in general. Although many of the local people here are excited and supportive of the idea of the development some of them are concerned that the arrival of more students will also result in the arrival of more fast-food restaurants especially when there's already an abundance of them here in Pubsborough. Secondary schools are being hit by teacher shortages as many qualified graduates are moving abroad to work in the Middle East benefits include tax-free salaries and free living accommodation. Sheena Freel of the INTO gave her thoughts on why teachers are leaving. Well there are a number of factors I think really pay inequality is a big one that you know teachers aren't going they're not being paid and newly qualified teachers aren't getting the same pay as teachers who qualified a few years before them and I think the cost of living in Ireland is the cost of buying a house, the cost of getting a mortgage the cost of rent so for a teacher living in Ireland trying to pay rent and save money for a mortgage it's not feasible if you have the option choice between that or going to Dubai or Abu Dhabi for a couple of years and having the price of a deposit coming back it's an easy choice for teachers to make. At a time of rising enrollment in schools and huge demand for teachers many Irish teachers cannot afford to live and work in places such as Dublin and are choosing to take the skills elsewhere. Approximately 326,000 teachers worked in international schools in 2014. This figure is meant to rise in 2020 to 436,000. We spoke to a number of student teachers to see if they plan to work abroad. Yeah I definitely would because it's way better like you get free accommodation you get more money because it's tax free it's class because it's a different culture you get to see it all you get to travel it's a win-win place like Abu Dhabi and even England you get paid a lot more than you would over here for teaching so I'd probably go over there for a couple of years and then like build up money and then maybe come back here like I don't think I'd stay over there for the rest of my life like I would always probably come back home and teach. I think I'd prefer to stay at home you know I just kind of like Ireland did all my teaching practice here so I think I'd be a bit more comfortable teaching here and it means I can stay home with family and friends and that as well. I'd probably stay here for a year or two and get experience because if you go abroad straight after you finish and then you come back it'll be much harder to get a job because all the newly qualified teachers would get to my head of you because you've just gone abroad for two years and left. On Econody, DCUTV News. The business building in DCU, a place where many leading third students will hope to end up next year. However, as students fill out their CAOs, UCAS have announced that the numbers of virus students accepting places in UK universities has fallen by 11%. The fall-off doubled from last year and has been linked to concerns over an increase in fees after Brexit. Irish guidance councillors were caught as well advising students to study in the UK and the future of fees is unclear. There's a fear, I suppose, of the uncertainty. Economically and politically, students aren't quite sure what's going to happen in terms of the situation around fees, even the cost of living and there are so many variables going with that. So it's making students take stock. The advice that we would give as guidance councillors would be to do your sums, do your maths, to damage your parents and work out the logistics and the affordability. Can you afford to live and if the situation around fees, wherever you're going, changes, can you actually fund those fees going forward? English universities currently receive the highest number of Irish students opt-in to study abroad. However, this drop by 22% mastered just over 900. There's also fears over outbreaks that will affect the free fees scheme in Scotland and how this effect will impact the Irish students currently availing of them. So it's very hard to predict what's going to happen with the situation around Scotland. That could change. We just don't know what's going to happen. It's an unknown world at the moment. A dog is for life, not just for Christmas. That's the message from Dogs Trust as they launch their Pause for Thought campaign. Last year, 756 people contacted the welfare charity within the first three months after Christmas to relinquish their dogs. With over 1,000 abandoned dogs coming through Dogs Trust doors each year, they cannot keep up with the numbers. Their campaign urges people to pause and consider the responsibility dog ownership entails. The charity has dotted oversized pause graffiti across Dublin City Centre and parks like this one in order to get people to think before they adopt. Normally it boils down to the fact that they just haven't got time or they didn't understand the commitment they were taking on. We'll often hear people say, oh, the dog got too big. There's not just saying a dog has gotten too big. A dog that hasn't been trained maybe seemed too big because he's bouncing up and knocking things over or that type of thing. But a well-trained dog, it really doesn't matter what size they are, because they're well trained. They're not going to be doing all the little things they're not supposed to do. Sometimes people bring them back because they just haven't got time for them. Maybe their work shift changed or they've had a break up in their relationship or their accommodation. There's so many different reasons. But a lot of the time it would boil down to just people who didn't understand what they were getting into in the first place. Dogs Trust Ireland has suspended adoption until the 3rd of January. Shauna Cone, DCTV News. Commuters will face travel chaos on Wednesday with the first of five 24-hour rail strikes set to take place. Unions have been looking for a pay rise of 3.75% with management offering a one-year increase of 1.75%. Talks between management and unions at the WRC took place earlier this month but failed to reach an agreement. The breakdown of the talks was very disappointing because we put an awful lot of effort into trying to construct a package that our members would accept. And to spend 12 hours in the WRC to have, as we call it, the road pull from Wonders at the last minute was totally unacceptable. And now that the company of traders is in this fashion it's going to make it actually harder to come to a deal now at this stage. At Conley Station, commuters reacted to the imminent disruptions. I think sometimes you have to stand up for your rights and they have tried everything. I would be a strong trade union supporter. I'll just be using the bus instead. I don't think it will affect me too much. I think it's important for workers to strike if they think it's needed, I guess. It's annoying when it affects public transport because it affects so many different people but if you compare ourselves against Paris they have so many more strikes. Well, I'm not a regular commuter so it wouldn't affect me directly but if I was a regular commuter I wouldn't be too impressed but then at the other side I can understand where they're striking so I could kind of see both sides but if it would affect me getting to work obviously, you know, I wouldn't be too happy. Over 155,000 people a day are expected to be affected by the staffers. Costing the firm 900,000 per day. CEO of Irish Rail Dave Franks warned the workforce of 3,800 that they may scupper their chances of a pay rise if they continue with the rail strike.