Calls for action to tackle school disadvantage

TEACHERS have demanded urgent action to tackle educational disadvantage in schools, to include smaller classes and pay incentives for school staff in poorer areas.

The Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) accused the Government of failing to tackle disadvantage through a shortage of resources and a lack of expansion of effective programmes.

More than €540 million has been allocated by the Department of Education this year for schemes aimed at eradicating educational disadvantage, including grants for third level students. Almost one-in-ten of the country’s 3,300 primary schools are designated as disadvantaged, qualifying them for extra staff and benefits under other schemes.

But INTO president Austin Corcoran said there has been a lack of co-ordination and continuity in these schemes.

“This has resulted in a loss of strategic planning and long-term development in tackling educational disadvantage. Added to the more serious problem of under-resourcing and failure to expand effective programmes, this amounts to a failure to really tackle disadvantage,” he said.

“We have had the debate and identified the problems. The INTO is now proposing clear and realistic solutions and urgent action is demanded from the minister and his department,” said Mr Corcoran.

He said schools with the highest levels of disadvantage should have a class size of 15 pupils at junior level and 20 at senior level, under an extended model of the Breaking the Cycle scheme. He also called for a three-year infant cycle and early intervention based on a pilot project which gives pre-school children a taste of the school setting before junior infants.

An INTO policy document being launched tonight also urges the payment of an additional allowance to teachers in schools in disadvantaged areas to help recruitment and retention. There is also a call for the release of principals from teaching duties in schools with at least four teachers.

The Department of Education said it welcomed any contribution to the debate on educational disadvantage and a review of disadvantage schemes ordered by Education Minister Noel Dempsey was expected to be completed in the near future. It was initiated to address perceived weaknesses in approaches to addressing educational inclusion.

“It is the minister’s intention that the review will result in a more integrated response to problems of educational inclusion, with particular emphasis on providing a continuum of provision and targeting investment in the most strategically effective way,” a department spokesperson said. She said funding issues arising from the report would be addressed in the context of the 2005 and subsequent budgets.

The INTO document also seeks a distinction to be made for schools which need support in terms of rural disadvantage, based on factors such as remoteness, poor road networks, falling enrolments and decline in available services to schools.