IPPN

Published: 29 April 2009

Source: independent.ie

Wednesday April 29 2009

The extent of the shortfall in resources for secondary schools as a result of Budget 2009 is frightening: medium-sized schools will typically find themselves losing at least two mainstream teachers in addition to teaching hours for language support.

This will lead undoubtedly to an increase in class sizes, a restriction in subject options and a suspension of programmes such as Transition Year, Leaving Cert Applied and Leaving Cert Vocational.

The abolition of grants for the aforementioned programmes, the loss of subject grants, grants for traveller education and the restriction of the book-grant scheme to the minority of disadvantaged schools in DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) will lead to many young people opting out of school early.

It is difficult to understand how our Government could possibly come up with the idea of abolishing the book-grant scheme which, for the past 40 years, has provided all young people with the opportunity to attend school on equal terms.

Is the Government telling us that there are no pupils in three-quarters of our post-primary schools who require support for the purchase of school books, when JMB research indicates that typically 25pc of pupils in non-DEIS schools are recipients of some level of support towards the cost of school books? What is to happen to these pupils next September?

The severe restriction of substitution cover for teachers taking pupils on out of school activities threatens the future of such activities. All of us can recount memorable trips to museums or being fortunate to represent our school in a hurling or hockey final. Are these broader but nonetheless critical experiences to be a thing of the past for this generation?

We need go no further than the recent history of our own country to acknowledge the value of investment in education. Are we now to ignore that valuable lesson?

Our concerns at the decline in funding for education are further increased when one recognises that by international standards our investment in education during the boom times was exceptionally low -- so low that we languish in the bottom three OECD countries. For voluntary secondary schools those years were more challenging and demanding rather than a time of plenty.

It is generally acknowledged that the State contributes on average €90 per pupil per annum less to schools in the voluntary secondary sector than the other two sectors. The fact that voluntary secondary schools have long been noted for the high quality of the educational experience encountered by students is a result of the very effective partnership between parents, pupils, teachers and management that operates in the 400 school communities throughout the country. This partnership has resulted in over 30pc on average of annual expenditure in voluntary secondary schools being raised in the local community.

The young people of today must not be forced to offer the excuse that they are "children of the recession". We owe it to them to invest in their future by investing in education.