Invest in primary schools to survive and prosper, warns economist

IRELAND risks losing its top global economic ranking unless the Government reverses its shoddy underfunding of primary education, a top economist warned yesterday.

Jim Power, chief economist with Friends First building society, told the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) annual congress, he had only truly understood the lack of investment in schools since his children began their education, in the past five years.

As a member of the board of their primary school, Mr Power said he was shocked at the amount of fundraising that parents had to do.