Cuts will hit poorer students

POORER students at schools not officially recognised as disadvantaged will be discriminated against by the budget’s education cutbacks, it has been claimed.

The Department of Education is withdrawing extra supports from schools previously designated as disadvantaged as one of the savings measures for 2009. Those schools not included in the department’s Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) scheme, under which around one-in-five of the country’s 4,000 schools received extra resources since 2006, had continued to get reduced supports. This will end in September.

Michael Moriarty, general secretary of the Irish Vocational Association, said children should not be punished because of their address.

“Every school in the country has students who are not well off and it is unfair to cut off supports that recognised this. This will just make the vulnerable people we should be trying to help even more marginalised,” he said.

Among the cuts announced by Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe was the removal of extra funding given to schools not included in the DEIS programme but which had continued to receive top-up funding originally provided under previous disadvantage initiatives.

The National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) has warned that education cutbacks will put significant strain on many essential strategies and services to address educational disadvantage and early school leaving, with the National Educational Welfare Board (NEWB) budget down 1% to below €10 million.

“The Government has not provided the required funding to ensure the NEWB can continue to adequately address early school leaving,” said NYCI director Mary Cunningham.

“As a result of the cuts, essential services are at risk of being withdrawn.”