Schoolyard battle brews as first day of term looms
The Department of Education claims that 240 teaching posts will be lost over the course of this year, while union figures are in the thousands.
YESTERDAY saw the opening skirmish in a series of battles over education cuts that kick in next month when schools reopen.
The cuts will seriously affect both pupils and parents.
They will also cause misery for a large number of teachers on fixed-term contracts that may not be renewed. The row arose unexpectedly because of the decision by the Department of Education and Science to post teacher allocations for all 730 second-level schools on its website yesterday.
This is a welcome sign of Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe's commitment to openness and transparency.
But the timing of the lists came as a surprise in the middle of the school holiday season -- even the minister is off this week -- and without clear preparation for the inevitable queries that would arise.
The Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) was quick to spot the lists. It issued a very tough statement, forcing the department, who it accused of a "cynical exercise by burying them on its website", onto the back foot, before it finally issued a statement "clarifying" the situation.
The department insists that, at most, 240 posts will be lost this year, which is a long way off the 3,500 claimed by the union.
The first figure is almost certainly too low and the TUI figure too high, as it relates to the position at the end of May and early June.
Since then some further allocations have been made but we won't know the final numbers until later in the year, when special needs and language-support teachers are added in to the individual staffing allocations for schools.
Managers have different figures yet again, predicting over 1,000 job losses in voluntary schools and perhaps half that again in vocational, community and comprehensive schools.
The losses arise because of budgetary decisions to increase the pupil-teacher ratio for all second-level schools, but on the basis of a two-tier system -- 19 to 1 for free-education schools and 20 to 1 for fee-charging schools.
Language-support teacher numbers will also be significantly reduced. Primary schools will also be affected by changes in staffing numbers and the loss of language-support teachers, when they re-open next month. The immediate effects will be felt by part-time teachers and those not on full contracts, many of whom will have to be let go.
The change in the ratio will effectively put most, if not all second-level schools, in an over staffed position.
Permanent-contract teachers cannot be made redundant and there is, as yet, no redeployment scheme that would allow them to be moved to other schools.
But one is due to come into operation next year, when the effects of the change in the ratio will be felt much more keenly.
"In reality, fewer teachers means larger classes, a reduced range of subjects, an elimination of programmes such as Transition Year, and Leaving Cert applied and higher and ordinary level Leaving Certificate students being taught in the same classroom. You simply cannot remove so many teachers from our schools without diminishing the quality of the educational experience," Ferdia Kelly, secretary general of the joint managerial body for secondary schools, said.
"The students who are most at risk of leaving school early, or struggle in the large classes, will suffer most. In other words, these cuts will impact on the most vulnerable young people in our society."
Staffing numbers are one issue, but of more immediate concern to many parents will be the huge hike in school transport charges and the withdrawal of book grants in all but the most disadvantaged schools. Many will have to fork out more at a time when their take-home pay is being reduced, that is, if they are able to hang on to their jobs.
The children's charity Barnardos says that going back to school can break the bank for parents who are struggling to meet the high costs of 'free' education.
Chief executive Fergus Finlay says that indications that children in designated disadvantaged (DEIS) schools will not be affected by cuts is very welcome.
"However, figures indicate that the majority of students from families dependent on social welfare or in low-paid employment do not attend DEIS schools and these are the children whose education will suffer and life chances will be impacted if we don't act now to protect them." Bad and all as things will be in the short time, they are likely to get much worse when the Government implements some of the recommendations from An Bord Snip Nua's report.
Education has been targeted for the biggest jobs' hit with a potential loss of 6,900 posts.
This would mean a further worsening of the pupil-teacher ratio, which would add to the pressures on schools to offer a reasonably broad curriculum.
Other proposed measures include rural school closures, longer working hours for teachers, outsourcing and rationalisation.
As the ASTI general secretary John White commented: "the education service and pupils have never faced such a serious threat".
But then, the country has never faced such a financial threat as it does now.
