Ratio changes threaten student guidance

SCHOOLS will lose almost 1,000 teachers through cuts which include an effective rise in second-level pupil teacher ratios (PTR) that could threaten vital guidance provision for students.

Although rising pupil numbers will help to offset 750 of those jobs, two thirds of them in primary schools, the biggest impact is at second level, where teachers and school managers described the measure on guidance counsellors as a PTR rise by the back door.

Where schools are entitled to a subject teacher for every 19 pupils, with a full-time guidance counsellor also appointed for every 500 students, guidance posts must now be counted within the mainstream staffing schedule.