Easter holidays may be cut as schools close until Thursday

MORE than 100,000 Leaving and Junior Certificate students could have their Easter holidays shortened to make up for the five days lost by hundreds of second level schools by next Thursday.

The country’s 4,000 primary and second levels were ordered last night to close on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next, on health and safety grounds.

But around half of them have already been forced to close for the last two days – when they should have reopened after Christmas holidays – by the freezing weather.

Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe made the announcement at teatime after yesterday’s meeting of the Government emergency co-ordination committee. “I took the decision to close all schools based on my concern for the health and safety of school children in these very challenging weather conditions.

“I considered, in particular, the forecast for snowfall on Sunday and Monday which will cause further disruption,” he said.

Mr O’Keeffe said the situation will be reviewed on Tuesday, but that the prudent approach was to close all schools in the interest of safety, even though some schools may be in a position to open before Thursday.

Department of Education officials will discuss ways of minimising the impact of the closures, particularly for state exam classes, with school management and teacher representatives in the coming weeks.

All second-level schools are required to open 167 days in each academic year and primary schools must open for 183 days.

But the ability to claw back five days or more before summer was questioned by the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) which represents second-level school heads.

“There should be flexibility in most schools to make up one or two days where it had been planned to use discretionary days. But it will be a lot more difficult if it’s five or six days,” said NAPD director Clive Byrne.

Any pressure to do so could force second level schools to bring exam students in during planned mid-term or Easter breaks, but Mr O’Keeffe’s spokesperson said it was not possible to speculate at this point.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) said the closure order was sensible as it removed uncertainty for parents about school openings, and it gives local authorities time which should be used to ensure routes to and from schools are safe.

“At the moment, there are major doubts over school transport due to untreated roads, particularly in rural areas, and pavements outside most schools are in a lethal condition,” said INTO incoming general secretary Sheila Nunan.

The Joint Managerial Body (JMB), representing the boards of almost 400 second level schools, expressed concern about the loss of tuition time and said it hopes every effort will be made by the authorities to provide safe roads and pathways to allow schools to re-open as soon as possible.