Claims cutbacks hitting critical school supports
- Published: 10 October 2008
By Juno McEnroe
CUTBACKS in school completion programmes have hit critical services supporting thousands of children around the country, it has been claimed.
Services being scaled back include homework clubs, holiday support schemes, attendance tracking programmes as well as breakfast clubs.
An Oireachtas committee is to consider asking Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe to review the cutbacks affecting the struggling children. The Department of Education wrote to school completion programmes in August asking them to make 3% cuts in payroll and other possible savings.
The IMPACT trade union claimed yesterday that cutbacks in school completion programmes had affected 89% of kids, or more than 22,000 children.
IMPACT official Niall Weldon told the Oireachtas Committee on Education about the harm the money saving efforts were having.
"I wish to put on record that the cutbacks currently being implemented and any future cuts will have a direct affect upon young people targeted for support under the programme."
While only €1 million is being scrapped from the group's €30m budget, the effects are significant, committee members were told.
According to IMPACT, the cuts have curtailed or cancelled homework programmes. From Dungarvan to Dundalk, clubs have been reduced. The clubs traditionally provide young people with a few extra hours a week in safe environments to concentrate on their work with expert help.
IMPACT claims holiday supports — vital to encouraging students to return to school — have also been affected. Cuts have also meant less children in some areas are able to avail of therapeutic supports, where emotional or behavioural difficulties might be impeding their school work.
The monitoring of truant students and breakfast club facilities have also been curtailed, claims the union.
Union officials work with programmes involving 25,000 children nationwide with some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged kids. IMPACT say 66% of its clubs have cancelled or curtailed breakfast clubs.
Committee chairman Paul Gogarty said if frontline services were affected, the concern needed to be addressed.
The committee will now consider asking the Education Minister to review the payroll cuts for school completion programmes.
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Schools angry over €1m wasted on applications
- Published: 10 October 2008
By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent
THE €1 million-plus bill incurred by schools on building work applications that were never considered by the department has sparked outrage among school manager organisations and principals, who have said they would rather have spent the money on classroom resources.
The money was spent on technical reports in support of applications from almost 1,200 of the 1,284 schools which sought funding under the 2008 Summer Works Scheme (SWS) in September last year.
The figures, provided by the Department of Education to the Irish Examiner under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal an average payment of €782, with almost 70 schools facing bills of €2,000 despite their applications not being considered after previous education minister Mary Hanafin cancelled the scheme in last December's budget.
The Joint Managerial Body (JMB), who represents the boards of 400 secondary schools, said the figures do not even take account of schools whose builders told them they would incorporate their fee into the overall bill if the application was successful, but who have come back looking for payment since the scheme was axed for this year.
"Even if schools qualify for funding in 2009, those who already paid fees won't see it back until nearly two years after spending it," said JMB general secretary Ferdia Kelly.
The minister has insisted that schools will not necessarily be at a loss for any spending on technical reports which accompanied SWS applications last year, as they can be considered for the 2009 scheme.
"Since the Summer Works Scheme was introduced, more than 3,000 projects, costing over €300 million, have been completed. With so many smaller projects having been completed over the past few years, the particular emphasis in 2008 is on providing sufficient school places in developing areas," a Mr O'Keeffe spokesperson said.
But that is little consolation to Matt Power, principal of Ennis Community College, whose school paid €2,000 to an engineer who helped compile an SWS application. The school sought funding to renovate its nine toilet blocks in the submission to the Department of Education.
"We've had to close some toilets because they're so damp, which means student must often walk from one part of the school to another to use the toilet. We could have put the €2,000 to good use replacing our 10-year-old computers or providing break-out areas for students," he said.
George O'Callaghan, chief executive of the County Clare Vocational Education Committee (VEC), which had five other schools under its management seek funding under the SWS, called on Mr O'Keeffe to ensure similar money to that previously spent is made available.
"The scheme allowed us to refurbish schools on a phased basis and the relatively small sizes of most projects meant schools gave a lot of work to local companies," he said.
William Stuart, principal of Taney National School in the south Dublin suburb of Dundrum, is similarly angry about the €2,420 he was billed by the architect who helped with their application to replace the flat roof on their 40-year-old original building in which half the 450 pupils are taught.
"We could have spent it on education equipment, we might have got three or four computers," he said.
Instead, the school depends on the fundraising of parents.
"They raise around €7,000 a year and this, along with contributions and occasional charges, mean our parents provide the same amount of money to run the school as the Department of Education," he said.
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Summer building scheme a discarded success story
- Published: 10 October 2008
By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent
THE school building programme has been the subject of political nightmares for education ministers for more than a generation.
But the Summer Works Scheme (SWS) has been one of the few success stories of the past decade when it comes to fast and efficient progress in upgrading the facilities of Ireland's 4,000 primary and second-level schools.
Announced on December 10, 2003, by the minister of the day Noel Dempsey, the scheme was designed to give schools power to manage building projects of a non-emergency nature.
The type of work allowed to be done with the grants was diverse, such as replacement of roofs and windows, refurbishing toilets, modernising electrical and heating systems, upgrading play areas or parking facilities, and making schools more accessible for students and staff with disabilities.
While there were some concerns initially that principals were being loaded with more work during the summer as there was no funding for project managers to oversee the works, school communities warmed to the programme.
A key aspect was that the projects could be carried out in the summer months, meaning minimal or no disruption to learning and allowing contractors full access to the school.
There was also the advantage of allowing work to be done before outdated machinery and equipment could become a problem which might require emergency works during school terms.
The significant rise in funding for the project was an indicator of its success and its popularity, with more than half of the country's schools applying for support under the 2007 scheme.
In its first year of operation, applications were invited by the end of February but this was brought forward in later years to November and October to allow schools to be chosen and to plan efficiently for work to start once summer holidays began.
In early June 2007, before primary schools had even begun their summer holidays, Education Minister Mary Hanafin issued details of the following year's scheme and invited applications.
With the deadline this time brought forward to the end of September, school staff worked during the summer or spent late nights after returning from summer holidays to get their reports together and submit applications in time.
The Department of Education had told them that a list of successful applicants would be published in December but Ms Hanafin declared on December 6, the day after the budget, that the scheme was being discontinued for 2008 to allow concentration of building funds on large scale projects and provision of schools in rapidly developing areas.
Cuts in services for pupils at risk of dropping out
- Published: 10 October 2008
By Katherine Donnelly
Homework clubs and other frontline services for children at risk of early school-leaving face cutbacks, the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Science heard yesterday.
A 3pc cut announced in August will shave €1m off the budget of the School Completion Programme, which works with 25,000 of the most disadvantaged school children, at primary and post-primary level.
There are currently 124 projects in 692 schools.
The committee agreed to ask the Department of Education to carry out a review of the impact of the cuts.
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Schools body urges priority for education in budget
- Published: 10 October 2008
By Seán Flynn
A GROUP which manages over 400 secondary schools has called on the Minister for Finance to give priority to the education sector in the budget.
The Joint Managerial Body (JMB) cites recent OECD figures showing that the proportion of gross domestic product spent on education in Ireland has dropped significantly from 5.2 per cent in 1995 to 4.6 per cent in 2005.
The OECD average in 2005 was 5.6 per cent of GDP.
Ferdia Kelly, general secretary of the secondary school grouping, said: "Ireland is ranked in 27th place out of 29 countries when it comes to the amount of GDP per capita invested in each second-level student.
"Only six out of 30 OECD countries have a worse pupil-teacher ratio at second-level than Ireland."
The organisation said the situation was even more severe for the voluntary secondary school sector. The average 400-pupil voluntary secondary school received, he said, €98 a pupil less each year than a comparable community and comprehensive school and €220 a pupil less than a vocational school.
"On top of all of that, voluntary secondary schools have to cope with steep increases in the cost of non-discretionary items such as heat (cost has almost doubled), power, telephone, water, classroom materials and cleaning materials."
It has also called on the Department of Education to provide "equal funding for all schools in the post-primary sector within the next two budgets of 2009 and 2010 in line with the commitment given in the programme for government 2007-2012".
This requires a commitment to an increase in payments to voluntary secondary schools of €98 a pupil a year which requires an additional budgetary allocation of €7.6 million.
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