Anger at impact of budget cuts in private schools
Protestant parents say they have no choice but to send their children to fee-paying colleges
Sunday September 06 2009
The nation's Protestant community is up in arms claiming that Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe is unfairly targeting its school budgets, with some saying they are at risk of having to close.
Under changes made by the minister to the funding model for fee-paying schools, teacher allocations and funding have been reduced forcing the schools to lay off staff or increase fees to bridge the gap.
But they also fear proposed cuts contained in the recent McCarthy report on government expenditure will force some of them to close their doors.
In the Budget, Mr O'Keeffe also removed ancillary grants for fee-paying schools -- which includes the vast majority of Protestant schools -- covering such expenses as caretaker and secretarial supports. There are 26 Protestant second-level schools across the country. Five are comprehensive schools. The remainder are voluntary secondary schools. Most of these are secondary boarding schools providing Protestant education to a dispersed population.
The schools feel these changes unfairly discriminate against them as they cannot choose to put their children into non-fee paying schools.
While the block grant remains in place, all voluntary Protestant schools have been removed from the free education scheme and lost a series of support grants.
The Council of Governors, the group of principals of the schools is calling on the budget changes to be rolled back or at least for the cuts made to be fair. Thomas Hardy, principal of the Villiers School in Limerick said he has lost three teachers as a result of the cuts or roughly €450,000 in funding. He said the cuts means he has to either let staff go or increase fees, at a time when people can hardly afford it.
He said the cuts puts the existence of his school in jeopardy. Speaking to the Sunday Independent, he said: "None of us are naive enough to think cuts aren't happening.
"But our schools are being unfairly targeted and are at risk of having to close."
Mr Hardy said despite the myth that schools like his cater for a wealthy elite, the truth is that many parents struggle to pay for their children to be educated in a school of their ethos. "We have borders from all over Munster. If we increase our fees, some of those children wouldn't be able to come here.
"But it is not as if they can just go down the road to another Protestant school," he said. And it is not just the schools that are up in arms.
Parents at the schools are deeply worried as to what impact the cuts will have on their children's education.
Linda Hayes, from Nenagh, Co Tipperary, has two children at the Villiers School and said the cuts are an attack on her rights to have her children educated in a school of her faith.
Her son and daughter are third generation attendees at the school and she is raging at Mr O'Keeffe dismissal of their concerns. "We are being denied our rights, it is an attack.
"We are being victimised here and there is huge fear as to what will happen."
Earlier this year, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Neill, criticised an "unbelievable lack of understanding" by the Department of Education.
- DANIEL McCONNELL Chief Reporter
