IPPN

Schools wait anxiously for spending decisions

Published: 18 November 2008

Many schools want money for building projects, but the government will have to make choices that will leave many unhappy, writes Martha Kearns.

The capital allocation for school buildings was the only Budget 2009 announcement concerning the education sector which did not cause uproar among teachers and parents - in fact, it received little comment at all.

This was probably because the impression was given that the allocation had increased from last year. As schools are waiting to see if they are included in a new building list, to be made public in January, most don't want to ruffle any feathers within the department until it is published.

It is true that the overall capital allocation for education was one of the few areas across the entire budget that will increase next year - up 10 per cent on this year to €889 million.

But, within that, the allocation for the schools capital programmes was slightly down from €586 in Budget 2008 to €581 in 2009.

This, according to the Department of Education & Science, will allow for the completion of 26 major projects and start construction on another 62major projects at both primary and second-level. It will also allow completion of 100 smaller projects on site and allow 80 projects previously approved to progress to completion.

The fall in the allocation of funds for school buildings will become a bigger issue once principals, teachers and parents see what schools are included - and, more importantly, excluded - on the new list, which is due to be announced after Christmas. A previous list of 25 major new buildings was announced in September.

Work has not started on many of the schools that were named on the department's previous lists and the jobs have gone back out to tender. This, according to the Minister for Education and Science, Batt O'Keeffe, was because prices for school building projects were up considerably from this time last year.

''I am getting back tenders that are 15 per cent and 20 per cent less than they were when previously tendered. I insisted re-tendering take place in order for us to get value for money for the projects in hand," said O'Keeffe.

One school which is hoping to be included is January's list is English National School, located around 10km from Ballinasloe in Co Galway.

The school is 109 years old and parents feel the building is a health hazard for their children, many of whom come out in hives and get headaches as a result of poor ventilation in the classrooms. There are rats on the school grounds and mice inside the building. The school said it has a Rentokil report which showed that rodents were chewing on wires. ''This is a fire hazard - and with the windows nailed shut it is a tragedy waiting to happen. Engineer's reports have been sent to the Department of Education & Science, listing structural cracks in the walls, problems with the wiring and the windows, damp, mould, rotten roof, leaking plumbing, rotten floors, and so on. We have engineer's reports and Rentokil reports.

The HSE and Health and Safety are compiling reports.

We are not willing to wait for a Coroner's Report," read a statement from the school's parents association. The chairwoman of the association, Bridie Harney, said the biggest issue was the health hazard to the children, ten of whom had asthma, which is aggravated by the mould and damp. ''One child fell into a bucket which was set up to catch rainwater in one of the classrooms. Children are constantly slipping on wet floors.

There is no hot water and no heating in the toilets. Part of the storage heating has had to be shut off because the classroom was filling with smoke.

What is the long-term damage being inflicted on our children's health?"

The school got a grant of €20,000 from the department, which was used to put tar felt onto the roof to prevent slates from falling off into the playground, which had been a regular occurrence. ''The roof is still rotten. Toilets which had been flooding were replaced, but water is still seeping up through the floor. Wire mesh has been fitted to the inside of the windows in the main building to prevent glass blowing in on top of the children, but this is now a fire hazard in itself. Leaks to the roof and windows in the prefabs have been repaired, but new leaks keep appearing.

The Department seem to think that a few repairs here and there will make this a fit building for our children to be in - it will not," said the association. Parents of pupils, past and present, have bought a field behind the school and have started fund-raising in order to apply for planning permission themselves. They said they would pay for the plans, architect, planning - if the department gives €600,000 for the school building.

The Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) said that a crisis was looming in the primary building programme. INTO general secretary John Carr said while there would be between 11,000 and 12,000 additional pupils in primary schools next year, the fact that the budget allocation for next year had decreased ''beggared belief''.

Carr said there were dozens of schools waiting for years for new buildings, extensions and renovations. ''Many of these were led to believe they would have builders on site this year. Now the minister appears to be short of funding to bring them on stream."

''In 2008 the summer works scheme had to be abandoned so new schools could be built. The minister must say what else will be sidelined so that new school places can be provided," said Carr. The summer works scheme is to be re-introduced next year, according to the minister.

Bill for substitute teachers soars to €183m

Published: 18 November 2008

Source : Irish Independent

MORE generous maternity leave provision is pushing up the cost of providing substitute teachers in schools to over €180m per year, new figures confirm.

This year's substitution bill is €183m, a third of which goes on maternity and related leave, while less than one-tenth is uncertified sick leave.

Women are now entitled to 26 weeks paid maternity leave and 16 weeks unpaid leave -- up four weeks on a couple of years ago.

The figures also show that the cost of uncertified sick leave is €17m compared with €45m for certified sick leave.

From January, the Department of Education and Science will no longer provide paid substitution for uncertified sick leave. Nor will it provide for substitution for teachers absent on official school business which currently costs €13m.

Teachers' union the INTO said the figures disproved the notion that there was a problem with uncertified sick leave among teachers -- they showed that it worked out at an average of just over one day per teacher per year.

"This is not high by any means," said John Carr, the union's general secretary.

He said costs in relation to substitution had increased, but these were due to improvements in maternity leave provisions and in payment rates for substitute teachers.

"Schools make every attempt to find a trained teacher to cover for absent teachers," said Mr Carr.

"This has impacted on the overall cost, but schools should not have to apologise for looking for a trained teacher to teach classes."

Other cuts will also have a severe impact, according to Michael Moriarty, general secretary of the Irish Vocational Education Association, which has just carried out a survey of the effects on VEC schools and colleges.

He said that 425 teaching posts would be lost to the sector as follows:

l Some 180 will go in mainstream schools because the pupil-teacher ratio is being raised to 19:1.

l A total of 157 will go because the ratio is being raised to 17:1 for post-Leaving Certificate courses.

l Some 88 will go following the withdrawal of previously approved disadvantaged posts and because of the capping of language support teachers.

"In addition to these cuts, VECs will have to implement the government directive to achieve a 3pc cut in their pay budgets in 2009. The 5pc budget cut in the adult education budget will also draw in excess of €4m from the sector," he said.

- John Walshe Education Editor

Batt gambles on public support

Published: 18 November 2008

Source : Irish Times

TEACHER'S PET: Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe was still talking tough during last week's meeting with various education groups over the Budget cutbacks.

No quarter was given to the teaching unions, school managers and the rest as Batt relayed the full extent of the nation's economic woes.

There is increasing confidence within the department that the storm of protest over the education cuts is beginning to blow itself out. Yes, the INTO's campaign of public protests is continuing but few in the union seem confident of reversing that decision to increase class sizes.

Over the coming weeks, the Minister's message to the teachers will be that they should be grateful for their secure jobs at this time of national economic crisis. He will probably roll out figures about the high cost of the teacher substitution regime and the alleged abuse of uncertified sick leave.

Batt's mantra is that the world did not fall in before the education cuts. Teachers delivered a great service in larger classes and they were happy to substitute for each other in a spirit of solidarity.

Teachers, he will say, need to get a grip and be more realistic. He also hopes to tap into a public mood which appears increasingly hostile to the public service.

Batt may have been labelled as the "Grandpa Simpson of Irish politics" by Fine Gael, but he is gambling he can rely on the sympathy of the public - if and when schools have to close because of the substitution cutbacks in January.

All of this could change, of course, if Batt waters down the substitution provision just before Christmas. Some school managers and others believe a deal will be worked out during the dark December days.

But Batt is building a political reputation on his steely resolve. Batt is not for turning - is he?

Warmest congratulations to Danny O'Hare, former president of DCU, who received a honorary doctorate from the university last week.

The words of DCU president Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski bear repetition: "Using very scarce resources, he turned a small educational start-up in north Dublin into a world-class university in the space of only two decades . . . his legacy can be seen . . .throughout the Irish higher education sector."

O'Keeffe sends team to study 'rat-infested fire-trap' school

Published: 18 November 2008

Source : Irish Times

RONAN McGREEVY

Tue, Nov 18, 2008

THE MINISTER for Education and Science Batt O'Keeffe has ordered officials to visit a school in Co Galway described by its principal as a "rat-infested fire-trap".

Elizabeth Mulry, the principal of Eglish National School in Ahascragh, Co Galway, believes that the school is in as bad a condition as any in the State and the lack of ventilation is affecting the health of the children.

It has 49 pupils housed in two classrooms and two prefabs, one used as a classroom, the other as a multi-purpose room.

In response to her claims, the Minister announced yesterday that he has asked officials to visit the school to review how money given to the school for structural work in June has been spent.

The department allocated €26,862 to carry out remedial work, mostly on the roof, last summer. The money was given to the school after a visit by a senior architect in June. Eglish was also given €35,319 in capitation grants over the last three years.

"The Minister is eager to establish whether the significant funding already allocated in capitation and for remedial works is being spent, whether it is being spent in the most cost-effective manner possible and whether it is getting the requisite return in terms of structural and other works in the school," the spokesman said.

Mrs Mulry said the work carried out on the roof had stopped slates falling off on to the playground beneath, but had also sealed the roof. Because the windows cannot be opened, there is a lack of ventilation which has led to the children getting hives and headaches, she has claimed.

She also said that a problem with rats which had to be tackled by Rentokil last year has been compounded by a problem with mice which emerged before the mid-term break.

The school's board of management claims a new school will cost €630,000 and it has already bought a site beside the existing school for it.

The Minister's spokesman pointed out that an application for capital funding for a new school building was only received in April. He said the Minister was "well aware" of the application but it had to be "considered in the context of all other applications, many of which were lodged with the department long before that of Eglish NS".

'Rat-infested' school fails to gain funding approval

Published: 17 November 2008

Source : Irish Times
RONAN McGREEVY

A PRIMARY school in Co Galway has been described by its own principal as a "rat-infested fire trap".

Elizabeth Mulry, the principal of Eglish National School in Ahascragh, Co Galway, said she could not believe that any of the 60 primary schools which had been approved for capital spending this year could be in a worse condition than her own.

Last year, Ms Mulry threatened to take the 49 pupils out of the school because slates were continually flying off the roof.

She said about half of the pupils began getting hives and headaches when they returned in September because there was no natural ventilation as the roof was sealed and the windows could not be opened.

"If the Minister [for Education, Batt O'Keeffe] could point out a single school in a worse condition than this one, I'll stop shouting," she said. "If there is another school where the walls are cracked, where there is mould and damp everywhere, windows held together with nails and wire, where neither the storage heater, the toilets or the taps work properly and there are mice and rats, the principal of that school should get in touch with me and I will offer him or her my sympathies," she said.

The 109-year-old school has two classrooms and two prefabs, one used as a classroom, the other as a multipurpose room. The Minister for Health and Children Mary Harney's father, Michael, attended the school between 1928 and 1937 and several of Ms Harney's cousins are taught there now.

Ms Mulry believes the school is in such a decrepit state that it should be demolished and a new building erected. Any attempts to repair the existing structure is "throwing good money after bad".

The school's board of management submitted a proposal to the Department of Education last year for a new school, and parents have bought a two and-a-half acre site adjacent to the present site for a new building.

The board estimates that a new school can be built within three to four months at a cost of €630,000.

The school was given €20,000 to repair the roof last summer because slates kept falling off in windy weather.

Ms Mulry said the roof was in such a bad state of repair that workmen had to use scaffolding because the beams were too rotten to support their body weight. The repair work stopped the slates falling off and also stopped the leaks, but sealed the roof.

The school called in Rentokil last year to deal with rats in the playground, but mice were also discovered in the classrooms before the Halloween break.

The chairwoman of the parents' association, Bridie Harney, who is not related to Mary Harney, said parents were "extremely concerned and very worried" about their children.

"We are at the point where we are saying, 'which is more important for our children - their health or their education?' " she said.

A Department of Education spokeswoman confirmed an application had been received for a new school. She said the project was being considered in the context of its multi-annual school building and modernisation programme. "However, in light of current competing demands on the capital budget of the department, it is not possible to give an indicative timeframe for the progression of this project at this time," the spokeswoman said.