Cutbacks immoral, say primary school managers
- Published: 24 October 2008
Source : Irish Examiner
By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent
GOVERNMENT cutbacks in education spending are immoral and discriminatory, primary school managers declared yesterday.
In a detailed statement outlining the impact of planned staffing and funding cuts, the seven management bodies representing boards of the country's 3,300 primary schools called for the coalition to immediately reconsider the range of cuts to front line services planned by Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe.
The groups, representing managers of schools under Catholic, Church of Ireland and Islamic patronage, as well as those with multi-denominational and inter-denominational ethos, special schools and all-Irish schools, said budget measures on education were short-sighted and will result in additional costs to taxpayers in the long term.
"The re-imposition of a cap on language support teachers and reducing supports for Traveller children is discriminatory and morally unsustainable. It singles out the most vulnerable and least politically vocal for attack," they said.
"It is immoral and deeply offensive to those managing schools, it will reduce the educational outcomes for such children, reduce their eventual productivity as citizens and increase the costs to the State of expensive later interventions," said the managers.
They singled out Defence Minister Willie O'Dea's comments earlier this week about class sizes, when he said there will be only one more child in each primary class as a result of the staffing changes, which will leave schools with 200 fewer teachers to work with 11,000 extra pupils. The remarks were described as misleading and evidence of a complete lack of understanding of the reality of schools.
Teachers and parents of students in more than 240 second level schools warned that the cutbacks will erode the educational improvements made over the past 15 years, despite Mr O'Keeffe's suggestion that things will be turned around in two years.
"Cutbacks in education for two years will have a hugely negative impact for years to come and a whole cohort of students will lose out.
"We were already third-last in education investment in the developed world, these cuts will ensure we win the race to the bottom of the league," said the Teachers' Union of Ireland and parents' associations for the vocational, community and comprehensive sectors.
Labour Party Education spokesman Ruairi Quinn, who will propose a motion calling on the Government to reverse the class size increases next week, said the issue was chosen because it will affect every pupil and every school in the country, but a range of other cuts will also have drastic implications.
"Already teachers are warning that some schools may have to close from January because of the cutbacks in teacher substitution, while the massive turnout in Dublin on Wednesday illustrates the concerns of third level students at the 66% increase in college registration charges and the threat to reintroduce tuition fees," he said.
