Call for schools using ‘educational apartheid’ to be denied funding

SECONDARY schools operating enrolment policies which exclude Travellers, non-English speaking and special needs students should not be receipt of Government funding.

The TUI, which represents 14,000 teachers and lecturers, urged the Department of Education to remove state funding for second-level schools engaged in “educational apartheid”, and put the money to roll back “brutal” education cuts.

John MacGabhann, assistant general secretary of the TUI, said it is “shameful” and “irresponsible” of the department not to acknowledge that these exclusionary enrolment policies are being operated.

Mr MacGabhann said boards of management were clearly the primary culprits, but they could not act as they do without the collusion of the department. “These schools get the same grants, capitation payments and teachers’ salaries for serving a privileged, homogenous, pupil cohort as do schools that honourably serve all the children of the nation,” said Mr MacGabhann.

The TUI has been calling for progressive reduction of the payments to exclusionary schools to some time, and maintains that now more than ever, it is critical that the issue be addressed.

“Our campaign is sometimes misrepresented as being one merely of opposition to fee-paying schools,” said Mr MacGabhann, who added that “nothing could be further from the truth.

“It is precisely because we demand high quality public education for all and access to the highest standards for all that we pursue our policy and make our demands.

“If this discommodes the pillars of the gated communities, so be it.

“We have a simple belief. It is that every child is entitled to be educated in her/his local school in the company of her/his siblings, friends and neighbours. Is it too much to ask of our ministers, TDs, local councillors, boards of management and of others in positions of power and influence that they espouse and pursue to completion this simple ideal, that they cherish all the children of the nation equally?”