Puttnam: Shame of dilapidated schools

IRELAND’S dilapidated schools are a “national shame” and the Government should see their rebuilding as a priority, the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) has heard.

Speaking at the 18,000-strong union’s annual convention, keynote speaker and multi-award winning filmmaker David Puttnam said the infrastructure children are being forced to learn in is sub-standard and a potential health hazard.

Mr Puttnam, who lives in Cork, is best known for producing iconic films such as The Killing Fields, Chariots of Fire, Memphis Belle and Midnight Express, and is a former BAFTA vice-president and a trustee of the Tate gallery in London.

However, since exiting the film production world the 70-year-old has become heavily involved in helping to reform the education system, with the dire state of Ireland’s public schools a matter of grave concern to him.

“The physical infrastructure of many of the primary and secondary schools here should be cause for national shame,” he told delegates.

“When I speak of infrastructure I most specifically include every aspect of connectivity, along with complementary hardware and software. Choices are made to spend billions of euro on buildings in the private and public sector that now lie either empty, underused or simply not needed,” he said.

“I cannot be the only person who believes that had some fraction of this sum been committed to refurbishing the quality of the schools and classrooms in this country, the nation would be far better placed to dig itself out of the hole all the accumulated debt helped create,” he said.

The comments were welcomed by ASTI president Jack Keane and Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, who accepted the need to improve standards but emphasised that such a move will “take time”.

Meanwhile, a rebel faction within ASTI is to meet outside of the union’s conference this afternoon to discuss what it claims is the selling out of members by senior officials.