Unions: Most vulnerable students will suffer
Among the 1,200 teacher posts being cut from next September are staff working with Traveller children and newcomer children who get extra support to learn English.
The Department of Education refused to answer questions from the Irish Examiner on the breakdown of the numbers of teachers in each area, nor would it supply the numbers of teachers currently working in the areas being targeted.
Primary schools will lose teachers working with Traveller children, while additional resource teaching hours for Traveller students in second-level schools are also being withdrawn, with unquantified alleviation granted to schools with high concentrations of Traveller children. The decision to cut extra staff for second-level schools which offer the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP) was sharply criticised by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI), which said schools are effectively being asked to drop the programme and more vulnerable students will drop out.
The LCVP combines academic study with a focus on self-directed learning, enterprise, work and the community, and was taken by almost 15,600 — more than one-in-four — of this year’s 57,839 Leaving Certificate students at 520 schools.
“Its learning methodologies require more teaching resources, a fact acknowledged by the previous staffing arrangements. With schools already straining to remain operational due to a range of cutbacks, principals will be left with stark decisions on future programmes they can afford to offer based on their teacher numbers,” said TUI general secretary Peter MacMenamin.
Teacher unions said a department directive yesterday that schools should only fill any vacancies on a temporary basis, because of the 1,200 jobs being cut next autumn, was a further hit to young teachers. The four-year plan included a stipulation that all new public servants will have lower salaries and pension arrangements than existing staff.
The Catholic Primary Schools Management Association said the teacher cuts will have a double effect on the most vulnerable communities, when combined with the 5% cut in schools funding from the department for their day-to-day running, and will put huge pressure on parents already feeling the impact of the four-year plan to help with the running costs of schools.
SOME of the questions put to the Department of Education at 1pm yesterday on the various teacher posts being reduced or withdrawn. Other questions about the projected number of job losses under the various headings went unanswered, even though the department has calculated the total savings that will accrue next year (€24m) and by 2014 (€98m).
“Regarding the reduction in teacher numbers:
- How many of the 150 extra teachers were to have been allocated to primary and how many to post-primary?
- What are the [staffing] arrangements for LCVP currently?
- How many teacher posts will be suppressed by removal of favourable pupil/teacher ratio for Gaelscoileanna and at how many schools?
- How many posts are allocated as resource teachers for Travellers at primary level, and at how many schools?
- How many language support teachers exist in: (a) primary sector and (b) post-primary sector?
- How many existed in each sector in each of the last four school years?
- How many rural coordinator teaching posts are there, serving how many schools?
- How many posts are there under the Visiting Teacher Service for Travellers, serving how many schools?
The Department of Education responded at 2.39pm: “With regard to your questions the Department has no further detail to add at this stage. The various measures in relation to teacher numbers are as set out at the end of the Department’s press release [of last Wednesday].
“The press release set out the impact of the various measures on the overall teacher numbers. Individual schools will be notified in due course in relation to the impact on their teacher allocations for the 2011/12 school year.”
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