STUDENTS with degrees or who have recently lost their jobs may struggle to get funding for courses to attain new skills because of strict social welfare rules, heads of some of Cork’s busiest further education centres have claimed.

TEACHERS in the further education sector may consider going on strike if the Government does not deliver long-sought funding in next week’s budget, a union leader warned last night.

SECONDARY school principals are hoping the ASTI will take the incentive of a deal finalised with the other two teachers’ unions and return to supervision and substitution duties.

SCHOOL principals who report truants will have no back up this September because the welfare officers needed to follow up on extended absences have not yet been recruited or trained.