‘Education will not be spared’

NO areas of education will be spared from potential cuts in the 2012 Budget, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has warned.

He said calls to spare education from cuts fail to appreciate the scale of the challenge facing the country. Despite encouraging international indications that our efforts at fiscal adjustment are being recognised, he said social protection, health and education cannot avoid the axe as they are the largest areas of public spending.

He faces pressure to cut his budget because of rising primary and second level pupil numbers, in his submission to the comprehensive spending review being overseen by Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Brendan Howlin.

“No area of education spending has been spared from scrutiny in the review. While protecting frontline services is a key consideration, the reality is that almost 80% of the education budget goes on funding for those who work in our educational institutions,” Mr Quinn said.

He was responding to Noel O’Connor, chairman of the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA), who said our future prosperity depends on having a well-educated, innovative and flexible workforce. He told the IVEA annual congress that raising pupil-teacher ratios, now expected to be an element of Mr Quinn’s 2012 budget, will inevitably restrict subject choice and cause further erosion of supports to vulnerable students.

“We can cut our spending and mollify the troika today, but we do this at the expense of our individual and collective futures. We wish you well in your efforts to convince your Cabinet colleagues of the futility of hobbling the one horse, that is education, that could win our race for prosperity.”

He welcomed Mr Quinn’s efforts to reform areas like primary school patronage, to address inequality in school enrolment policies, and reform of junior cycle, senior cycle education and the college points system.

The IVEA has welcomed the minister’s creation of a widened further education and training sector under the helm of the VECs, although their numbers are to be reduced from 33 to 16 newly named education and training boards.

The current VECs, the boards of which include more than 300 city and county councillors, will continue to meet until after the 2014 local elections. But Mr O’Connor asked the minister to ensure the new boards are big enough to give adequate representation to public representatives, parents, staff and community interests from the VECs being combined.

The minister said he will soon decide the locations of the new boards’ headquarters. He is considering allowing sub-offices to be run in some areas for the medium term, if it is not possible to redeploy staff from one of the merged VECs because of distance or capacity issues.

Mr Quinn plans to bring heads of the bill to establish the new boards before the Oireachtas Education Committee next month.