Learning to cope with shrinking funds
Principal Rory Darcy was grateful but, given that the Department of Education invested €129,000 in the playground last summer, he would have preferred to use the grant to upgrade the school’s lighting system and spend any leftover cash on learning materials for the classrooms.
“We’re using the money instead to add a sensory area to the playground for children in our five special classes. But the trouble with the different grants from the department is that we have no autonomy in how to spend it.”
For Rory, like every primary and second-level principal in the country, this lack of independence compounds the 5% cut in depart-mental funding for day-to-day running costs announced in the budget last December.
“Last year, we spent €16,500 on oil, which has gone up in double-digit percentages in the last few years, and another €18,000 on insurance. Between them, they made up more than a quarter of our entire budget.”
He wants to see whoever takes over the education portfolio allow more flexible funding arrangements so schools don’t have to constantly turn cap-in-hand to parents and local communities.
“People pay their taxes so they can send their children to school, they shouldn’t have to be asked to pay more. We’re haemorrhaging money but, rather than reversing cuts, greater autonomy would allow schools more say in how it’s spent and reduce the burden on parents.”
The growth in pupil numbers at St Oliver’s from just over 400 in 2002 to 708 this year has prompted another problem.
“We’re in the early stages of the school building programme for an extension but in the meantime, €75,000 a year is being spent to rent prefabs here,” he explains.
The department has almost halved its annual rental bill for prefabs and other temporary accommodation from €53 million in 2008 to €27m last year. But the waste is all the more upsetting for principals like Mr Darcy when €62m set aside for primary building projects last year was given instead to the third-level sector.
“Surely one of the conditions we can have [on the public money] in the banks is to insist they put up money for schools? We have an opportunity to build permanent structures instead of putting dead money into rent,” he said.
St Oliver’s has seen a rise in international students from 180 to 220 in a few years but has lost two of its six language-support teachers. Under the 2011 budget, another 500 such staff are due to be cut from next autumn.
However, another 600 posts at schools with high numbers of Traveller children are also to be cut. St Oliver’s NS will lose its three resource teachers for Travellers (RTTs) who help the 50 Traveller pupils with reading and numeracy problems.
But they also assist other pupils with learning difficulties as the school doesn’t have the extra resources that more than 900 other primary and second level schools get to help combat educational disadvantage.
“The next government has to realise there are pupils who are disadvantaged in a wide range of different schools and not just in the ones getting extra support.
“Irish schools have coped remarkably well with changes in society and new legal and curriculum demands since the late 1990s. Removing supports like RTTs or language-support teachers might make sense to some bureaucrat sitting in an office but they don’t realise how much our ability to adjust has relied on those supports.”
Unlike in 2007, there are no political promises in this election campaign to appoint more teachers. Prospective policymakers are focused instead on the quality of teachers.
The classes at St Oliver’s have between 25 and 33 children each and Mr Darcy agrees that the quality of the person in charge is hugely important.
“But equally important is the relationship between teacher and pupil and, to ensure that, you do need a reasonable pupil teacher ratio,” Mr Darcy said.
While most parties vow not to raise primary or second level class sizes any further, the extra staff needed to address learning difficulties or provide other interventions are likely to remain at a premium unless Ms Coughlan’s successor secures significant additional funds, given that the number of classroom teachers will rise just to meet soaring enrolments.
At the recent conference of the Irish Primary Principals’ Network, Department of Education secretary general Brigid McManus made clear that resources for schools are restricted by the overall allocation from Government.
Responding to concerns about a ban from next September on appointing more special needs assistants to meet the care needs of pupils with disabilities, she said any reversal could only be funded by an increase in class sizes or cuts to other staffing.
It makes clear how difficult it will be for the incoming government to maintain supports that supplement the work of classroom teachers.
Which may mean Mr Darcy, his staff and those like them at 3,300 primary schools may have to continue doing the best they can for their pupils with dwindling resources.
