Use sports halls as classrooms, says Dempsey

OVERCROWDED primary schools in need of extra classrooms are being told by the Department of Education to use their physical education halls, depriving children of exercise facilities.

Not even schools in disadvantaged areas, where there are no other recreational facilities for children, are guaranteed to get funding required to rent a prefab and are being told to use their PE halls or general purpose rooms as classrooms.

Despite Government concerns about childhood obesity and lack of exercise, yesterday Education Minister Noel Dempsey said he was aware of the classroom situation, but said the money was not available to meet all the demands.

"On the basis of the amount of money we have for temporary accommodation and the extra teachers we are putting into the system, who require extra space, it was not possible to provide the level of temporary accommodation needed and a very difficult decision had to be made," he said.

Labour education spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan, who raised the department's policy with the minister, said physical education was a vital part of the school curriculum. "Surely this is a backward step and solving the problem should not take a lot of money. I do not know how many schools are involved, but I have three examples from three different counties and I am sure there are more," she said.

While Mr Dempsey says there are a limited number of schools involved, Ms O'Sullivan said she was directly contacted by three schools refused temporary accommodation:

St Lelia's National School, Kileely, Limerick city.

Clonlara National School, Clonlara, Co Clare.

St Corban's National School, Naas, Co Kildare.

St Lelia's board of management chairwoman Canon Micheál Liston appealed directly to the minister and said the school's general purpose room was too small for class sizes and was used for PE and other extra curricular activities. The physical education programme would have to be totally withdrawn from the school curriculum if the room was to be used as a mainstream classroom, he warned.

"Our school is located in a RAPID area where there is No provision for any type of physical activity for our children outside of school hours," Canon Liston wrote.

Yet, Ms O'Sullivan was told by the minister that only those with an absolute and demonstrated need for additional accommodation were approved for funding.

"The application from the school was not successful on this occasion," the minister said in reply.