RTÉ News yesterday covered a pretty scary story about DIT conducting product research with children on behalf of companies such as Glanbia; this research involved getting children as young as 8 to taste and rate products such as crisps, cheese an burgers.
The initial scandal is that schools are allowing this, the other side is that parents are not made aware of it, finally the fact that DIT, Glanbia and Robert Roberts and the schools themselves seem to miss the fact that a roomful of pupils are not there to profit from, they are there to teach.
Jean Cahill, Head of Innovation at DIT spoke to RTÉ News yesterday, made some bizarre points and showed the world how to make yourself as patronisingly ignorant as possible on national television:
Jean Cahill (DIT): They are there under the supervision of their teachers and under the supervision of their…
Emma O’Kelly (RTÉ): But they come to school to learn and they haven’t come to school to take part in market research.
JC: Absolutely and it’s a great, it’s an absolutely, it’s a great learning opportunity in one sense for them as well…
EO’K: To test food for commercial companies?
JC: Yeah. To find, to generate an opinion from the children, ye know, to get an opinion of these foods from the children.
Note how she says that it is a great learning opportunity for children because it “generates an opinion of these foods from the children”; I may be missing something but that sounds awfully like a great learning opportunity for no one but Glanbia and co.
Watch the video here (realplayer beware!) if you can, it’s worth it. The Jean Cahill interview is about 1 minute in and is better on video than it ever could be on paper.