Focus on impact of cuts on disadvantaged communities

THE inevitable heavy impact of cutbacks on educational services in disadvantaged communities will be highlighted at a conference which begins today.

Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe will make his first address to a meeting of a key education partner body at the Irish Vocational Education Association annual congress in Galway tomorrow evening. But he is likely to be greeted with warnings about the adverse effects on poorer people and low-skilled workers of the 3% pay budget he has ordered from city and county Vocational Education Committees, who are represented by the association.

As well as managing about 250 second level schools and 200 centres with further education courses, which will be exempt from any pay bill cuts, the committees also run adult education, literacy and other training programmes, which target people returning to studies or trying to increase their employment opportunities.

“The VECs will be operating in a vastly different economic landscape over the year and the consequences will be felt throughout the sector, with cutbacks in the provision of some educational programmes almost inevitable,” warned association general secretary Michael Moriarty.

Another issue for debate is the future role of committees in the management of primary schools, which has been undertaken on a pilot basis for the first time this year, with Co Dublin VEC acting as patron of two new schools which opened this month to children of all faiths. While the move is seen as a possible way of catering for an increasingly diverse young population, many questions remain unresolved about the future role of the churches and the State in future schools provision and whether faith formation should continue to be the job of schools.

Delegates at the Galway conference will this afternoon discuss concerns about the appeals system open to students who are refused enrolment in a school or expelled, which have already been the subject of a number of court challenges.