Govt to press ahead with cuts to school transport scheme [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 28 June 2011
Junior Education Minister Ciarán Cannon said the country is borrowing €350m a week and savings had to be made.
He says €17m savings on school bus transport had to be made between now and 2014.
The cuts were introduced in Budget 2011 by the previous Fianna Fáil/ Green Government but are being implemented by Fine Gael and Labour.
From next September, primary school children will be charged a minimum of €50 per year for bus transport rising to a maximum charge of €650 per family.
Full Story: www.examiner.ie
Reilly challenges Junior Education Minister on cuts to school transport [sinnfein.ie]
- Published: 28 June 2011
Speaking today in a Seanad debate on Primary School Transport, Sinn Féin Senator Kathryn Reilly challenged Junior Minister Ciarán Cannon on his proposed cuts.
Senator Reilly said:
“Minister Cannon said last week that the changes implemented this year are expected to produce a saving in the order of €3.5 million and still have to find another €13.5 million in savings over the next three years.
“Today he is telling us that savings of €4million are expected in 2011 and €14million up to 2014. Which are the correct figures?
“Where will these “savings” come from?
“With many families struggling from week to week and 1 in 5 only having €70 left at the end of the month after bills this could see families unable to afford to safely send their child to school.
Full Story: www.sinnfein.ie
Last chance to retain special needs posts [enniscorthyguardian.ie]
- Published: 28 June 2011
CAMPAIGNING parents with autistic children attending St. Senan's primary school in Enniscorthy have been given a last ditch chance to make the case for keeping six threatened specials needs assistant posts. A special education assessor is visiting the campus at Father Murphy Park today (Tuesday, June 28) to look at the children.
And the parents have been allotted a series of ten minute meetings with the assessor, allowing each family to make its case for retaining the SNA. A total of fourteen out of the eighteen youngsters attending the unit face cuts unless they can somehow persuade the authorities to revise their plans.
'I am not optimistic though I welcome the chance to put our case,' said Margaret Wickham, mother of nine year old Dylan who is a pupil at the unit in St. Senan's, who suspects that the officials have already made up their minds. ' They are still coming in with the view that 227 jobs have to go nationwide.'
The day long review comes after parents, staff and supporters filled two buses as they travelled to Dublin last week to protest at the Dáil. They were joined outside Leinster House by representatives of the primary school in Taghmon and of a school in Lucan.
Full Story: www.enniscorthyguardian.ie
Online literacy 'above average' [IrishTimes]
- Published: 28 June 2011
Irish teenagers are above average at reading digital and online texts, according to an OECD educational study.
The latest volume of the organisation’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) measured the ability of 15-year-old students to read, understand and apply digital texts, including e-mails and websites.
It found Irish teenagers ranked seventh out of 16 OECD states behind South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and Japan but above countries like Belgium, Norway and France.
The above-average result contrasts with the poor performance of Irish students in the traditional paper-based literacy tests, published by the OECD last year.
The former study found Irish 15-year-olds had fallen from fifth to 19th in the literacy rankings, the steepest decline of any developed country.
Full Story: www.irishtimes.com
Transport cuts 'will go ahead' from next school year [schooldays.ie]
- Published: 28 June 2011
Proposed cuts to the school transport system that could see many rural primary schools lose bus routes will go ahead from the next school year, the government has stated.
Junior Education Minister Ciaran Cannon insisted that the changes will be implemented when pupils return in September, RTE reports.
The Department of Education will cut around 150 routes that serve schools where fewer than ten pupils live over 3 km away, while many other families who had previously benefitted from free travel will now have to pay.
From the start of the next school year, a minimum of 50 euros per child will be levied on primary school students, while the maximum amount payable by families sending children to secondary schools will be 650 euros.
Full Story: www.schooldays.ie
