IPPN

Published: 14 March 2009

Source: Limerick Leader

By Mike Dwane

PRIMARY schools in Shannon are to lose out on extra teachers and almost €50,000 in funding from the Department of Education thanks to cutbacks announced in the Budget.
Shannon Town Council is backing the INTO's campaign against the cutbacks and a motion by Cllr Tony Mulcahy calls on the Government to scrap the increase in the pupil-teacher ratio by one pupil from September.

INTO members in Clare have told counci
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llors that St Conaire's National School will lose a permanent English language teaching assistant due to the capping of these positions at two per school regardless of the number of immigrant children in class.

An additional classroom teacher, supposed to be arriving in September, will not now be appointed as a result of the cutbacks.

St Aidan's National School will also lose out on their expected extra teacher in September because of the increase in the pupil-teacher ratio.

Losing this extra teacher means class size will increase by more than one pupil per class.

Schools in Shannon will also lose out on the €46,000 they could have expected from the free books scheme, Traveller education grant, school library grant, the teaching aids grant for special needs pupils and other grants and allowances that have been either curtailed or scrapped altogether by Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe.

"In times of economic crisis, the three most important things are education, education and education," declared Cllr Mulcahy, adding: "I've been told by St Tola's, St Aidan's and St Conaire's that they are all facing huge cuts in staff or resources or both.

"St Conaire's will lose two teachers and Aidan's will lose one by September 1. There are cuts in book grants, Traveller education grants, special needs aids, all gone by the wayside.

"I don't know how teachers can be expected to cope with 33 or 34 kids in a class. To control them would be hard enough, never mind educate them."

Cllr Tony McMahon, chairman of Gaelscoil Donncha Rua, said there was little point writing to the Department of Education when its record of responding with any degree of punctuality was so "pathetic".

"You could be waiting three months to a reply to the simplest of questions. We have been paying for rental for prefabs for God knows how many years, and the rent paid out would have paid for a new school over and over again," Cllr McMahon said.

The Celtic Tiger, Cllr Sean McLoughlin said, was founded on the skills of educated university graduates who got their grounding in primary schools.

"We are now eating the scealláns, the seed potatoes. We are destroying the seeds before we get the full potato," he said.

Cllr Greg Duff said it was disgraceful that special needs children were having resources taken back from them which they had been denied for years.

Cllr Geraldine Lambert said it made no sense that strict health and safety regulations for the numbers in creche classrooms were not applied to primary education.