IPPN

Last Updated: Monday, 08 November 2004 00:00

Principals call it a 'Black Day' for Primary Education

The Irish Primary Principals' Network (IPPN) are profoundly disappointed and frustrated with the Minister's announcement that the government will not be able to honour it's commitment to reduce class size. IPPN, representing the professional views of 3,300 Principals, believes that this decision is in fact a step backwards for primary education given its consequences in three key areas:

1.Special Education Needs
Principals, teachers and parents alike are all committed to the successful integration of children with SEN in mainstream primary classrooms. However, it does not take an educationalist to understand why you cannot successfully include a child with Autism in a classroom that has 30 other children each with their own emotional, behavioural and learning needs. Integrating SEN is not something that can be done 'on the cheap' with large classes. If this is to happen in a way that is educationally meaningful, class sizes must be dramatically smaller. This is simply not negotiable.

2.Education Disadvantage
Almost every week we hear reports about a high level of illiteracy and student drop out from second level. What is often forgotten is that there are thousands of disadvantaged children in mainstream classes that are not in Designated Disadvantaged Schools. As long as disadvantaged children are in primary classrooms with large numbers, the challenge of tackling literacy, numeracy and their personal development needs, will prove next to impossible. You cannot 'fix this problem' at second level. It can only be resolved through adequate intervention at the early stages of Primary Education.

3. Revised Primary Curriculum
Huge money has been invested in what has been widely accepted as an excellent Primary Curriculum. It is now the envy of many other countries. Sadly, its benefit will be lost if we fail to reduce class size. The revised curriculum manifests itself as a complex and sophisticated structure for learning which has required much up-skilling of teachers and significant additional teaching resources. This curriculum has effectively done away with whole-class teaching replacing it with a combination of group work and one to one teaching. These approaches cannot be achieved with the current average class size of 29.

Primary Education is not a luxury, nor indeed a charity. Primary education is a fundamental human right. Today, the average number of children in Irish Primary Classrooms is 29 per teacher. Because this is an average figure it means that for every classroom with 24 children there is a corresponding classroom with 34!

Ireland is now amongst the richest nations per capita and has a vibrant and growing economy. There is no reason why our government could not give it the level of priority required to deliver an appropriate service. We have recently learned that Finland, Denmark and Sweden are in the top four of the worlds most competitive economies. These countries have continued to prioritise primary education for many years without adverse effects to other public services.

Ends

Seán Cottrell, Director, IPPN
1890 21 22 23 / 086 6478717