Students set to suffer due to cutbacks

PRINCIPALS have warned that cutbacks are creating major problems organising timetables and subject choices for students as they prepare to open hundreds of second-level schools in the coming days.

In a rare public statement, school heads who are members of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI), said they are having severe difficulties and finding it almost impossible to finalise class timetables because of uncertainty over teacher allocation and the range of cutbacks taking effect this term.

The Principals and Deputy Principals’ Association (PDA) said its members at around 300 vocational, community and comprehensive schools, said problems are also caused by a range of other cutbacks announced since last October for the new school year.

They include a reduction in general teacher numbers for mainstream classes, that will in turn reduce the ability to offer many subjects, or to separate higher and ordinary level students for Leaving Certificate subjects. Some of those likely to suffer in most schools are physics and chemistry, which are taken by less than one-in-seven school leavers despite Government efforts at boosting interest.

Other measures being imposed include the cutting of direct grants for programmes such as Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA) and transition year.

Dozens of schools that previously received funding for book rental schemes or to help poorer families meet the costs of school books have also lost this funding, but may still have to find the money elsewhere for students in financial difficulty.

The TUI has already been in a war of words with Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe over the number of teaching posts to be lost as a result of the cuts, as he strongly rejected the union’s recent claim that interim figures from his department suggested more than 3,000 fewer teachers would be employed in the country’s 730 second-level schools.

PDA president Kevin Whyte, principal at Mannix College in Charleville, Co Cork, said whatever the final outcome, there will be considerably fewer teachers for this school year than before the summer. “Principals are now trying to finalise timetables for the 2009/2010 academic year, which is proving very difficult if not impossible within the guidelines and recommendations set down by the department,” he said.

“The result will be less subject choice for students and the possible removal of programmes such as the LCA, that help greatly with student retention beyond the junior cycle.”

Mr Whyte said that, while the department has said teacher numbers will not be finalised until later this year, all students must be catered for in every school from the first day of term and not in November or December.

“We urge that the worst of the cutbacks, including cuts to the book grant, be reversed and that education be insulated from further attacks,” he said.

The association also criticised a promotions embargo under which vacancies for assistant principals or special duty teachers can not be filled, meaning important tasks can not be carried out in working with special needs students, or in relation to behaviour and attendance policies, and other areas.