Primary school groups unite to fight further cuts
Meán Fómhair 5, 2013
Primary school education groups have warned that educational spending could be a huge political issue in next year’s local elections.
The groups have joined forces to form the National Alliance for Primary Education in a bid to stop further spending cuts in primary education in next month’s budget. The alliance believes any attempt to cut primary education is essentially a direct attack on children and their constitutional right to education.
A postcard campaign, aimed at TDs and organised by the alliance, is to start this week. It calls on politicians to protect primary education in the budget so schools can contribute to the national recovery.
“Primary school children did not cause our economic crisis,” say campaigners. “They should not be forced to pay for it through education cutbacks.”
Áine Lynch, the chief executive of the National Parents Council–Primary, said: “We are calling on parents, teachers, principals, and the wider community to get behind this campaign.”
Paul Rowe, the chief executive of Educate Together, said children in primary schools bore no responsibility for the difficulties of the Government and financial system.
“We are asking the Government parties to be aware of the significance of the local elections coming up next year,” he said. “That this is a major political issue which has to be addressed.”
Brendan O’Sullivan, president of the Irish National Teachers Organisation, said more cuts in education were being threatened in the name of a discredited austerity regime but were not necessary.
“There is a choice being made here to make these cuts on the backs of children in primary school,” he said. “For any of us that is not acceptable.”
Brendan McCabe, president of the Irish Primary Principals Network, said Finland increased its education budget when the country was in recession and Ireland should do the same.
As reported in the Irish Examiner earlier this week, primary class sizes increased slightly in the last school year with no changes to the ratio of almost 25 pupils per teacher, even though there were no changes to how staff are allocated to schools. With schools accepting more pupils but not enough to be allocated extra teachers, 121,353, or almost one in four, pupils were in primary classes of 30 or more, around 8,500 more than the previous year.
The effects of counting guidance counsellors in secondary schools’ general staffing allocation of all contributed to a rise in pupil-teacher ratios from 13.5:1 to 13.9:1.
Gerard Craughwell, president of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland, said schools operated with 650 fewer teachers than they should have, contributing to the loss of subjects such as physics, music, languages, and others.
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