ESRI to warn on school cuts

STUDENTS from poorer backgrounds may suffer most from a budget cut that could see schools reduce guidance counselling next year, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) will warn today.

The think-tank also questions how Government education policy has been focused on literacy and numeracy, in a paper to be published at a conference this morning.

In last week’s budget, second-level schools learned that instead of having additional allocation of guidance counsellors, these staff must now be included in their general teacher allocations.

This will leave boards of management to decide whether to drop subjects, push up class sizes or cut guidance provision.

But the ESRI paper notes that previous research points to the focus of existing guidance resources on senior cycle with less provision made for junior cycle where young people make key decisions.

“The removal of the specific allocation to employ guidance counsellors in Budget 2012 is therefore likely to have a significant effect on schools’ capacity to support student choices of subjects, programmes and post-school pathways, and to provide personal and social supports to students,” wrote research professor Emer Smyth and senior research officer Selina McCoy.

“This is likely to prove particularly significant for young people from less advantaged backgrounds who are far more reliant on advice from their school in making post-school decisions and particularly decisions in relation to higher education entry,” they wrote.

Their paper on using research evidence to develop policy on improving second-level education warns against relying too much on trying to match what happens in countries like Finland where students score best in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests of 15 year olds.

The results of 2009 reading and maths tests reveal below-average performance among Irish teenagers at maths, average for reading and above average for science and digital literacy.

The ESRI paper said the declining Irish performance prompted new policy emphasis on numeracy and literacy. It said the rankings used in the assessment only give a partial view of the quality of Irish education and deflect attention from evidence of other challenges that might shape policy.