Ministerial review won’t help 33 schools set to lose teachers

More than 30 primary schools due to lose additional teachers to help tackle disadvantage will not benefit from a review of the budget cuts by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, figures from his department reveal.

The estimated 428 teacher jobs the Department of Education planned to remove from 270 primary and 163 second-level schools are mostly in schools in its DEIS scheme (Delivering Equality of Opportunity In Schools) established in 2005, but some are outside it. The information provided to the Irish Examiner shows that 17 of the 270 primary schools affected are non-DEIS. A report being prepared for Mr Quinn on the impact of the cuts is only looking at primary schools in the urban categories of DEIS.

A further 16 DEIS rural schools are also shown to be in line to lose posts, but they too are outside the scope of the review, due with the minister in about a fortnight. There are more than 300 primary schools in the DEIS support programme for rural schools, which suffered the loss of almost 50 teachers working directly with pupils’ families last September.

Mr Quinn has ordered the report from his officials on the effects of the proposed withdrawal of non-DEIS teacher jobs from urban DEIS primary schools, based on the most recent enrolment figures for those schools. It will also take into account the impact of other factors such as projected enrolment changes and reforms of the general allocation scheme for teachers, which may also effect those schools’ staffing requirements next year.

All but two of the 17 non-DEIS primary schools under threat of losing posts were in the department’s earlier Giving Children An Even Break scheme and have kept the additional teachers they had under that scheme for the past decade.

Further analysis of the Department of Education figures show that the primary schools include 163 from DEIS Band 1, which are urban schools deemed to have had the highest concentrations of disadvantaged pupils when DEIS schools were selected in 2006. Another 74 are urban primary schools in DEIS Band 2, with slightly lower levels of disadvantage.

The regional breakdown reflects the urban spread of disadvantage in the DEIS scheme, with 149 Dublin primary schools affected, 26 in Cork, 13 in Galway, 11 each in Donegal and Limerick and nine in Waterford.

The other 16 counties in which schools are threatened with the loss of teachers from pre-DEIS schemes are Carlow (2 schools), Cavan (1), Clare (2), Kerry (1), Kildare (3), Kilkenny (1), Longford (2), Louth (8), Mayo (5), Meath (2), Offaly (5), Sligo (2), Tipperary (4), Westmeath (3), Wexford (4), and Wicklow (6).

Just four of the 163 second-level schools due to lose extra teachers are outside DEIS, but each is an amalgamation of two schools in recent years, one of which had been in DEIS and the other was not. All the second-level posts due to be lost were additional teachers under the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme, introduced in 1984.

The biggest number of second-level schools affected is in Dublin, with 47 due to lose out, followed by: Cork (16 schools); Donegal (11); Galway, Kildare and Limerick (7 each); Mayo and Tipperary (6 each); Kerry, Kilkenny, Wexford and Wicklow (5 each); Longford, Monaghan, Offaly and Waterford (4 each); Louth, Meath and Sligo (3 each); Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Laois and Westmeath (2 each); and Roscommon (1).

* To see the full spreadsheets concerning the schools and cutbacks, visit here

Breakdown of cuts

* The pre-DEIS posts proposed to be withdrawn from schools are broken down as follows:

* Withdrawal of reduced pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) from non-DEIS primary schools — 38 teachers at 15 schools. Saving: €800,000 this year and €2.3 million annually in later years.

* Abolition of support teacher project — 43 teachers at 45 DEIS and three non-DEIS primary schools. Saving: €800,000 in 2012, €2.6m a year from 2013.

* Withdrawal of reduced PTR of 15:1 in DEIS schools previously in Breaking the Cycle programme — 45 teachers at 32 primary schools. Saving: €200,000 this year, rising to €2.7m in 2015.

* Withdrawal of Disadvantaged Areas Scheme posts from mostly DEIS schools — 64 teachers at 59 primary schools, 136 teachers in 163 second-level schools. Saving €4m this year and €12m annually from next year.

* Withdrawal of reduced PTRs in Urban Band 2 DEIS schools, which were given extra staff under Giving Children an Even Break (GCEB) scheme (20:1 in junior classes and 27:1 in senior classes) — 102 posts in 52 primary schools. Saving: €700,000 in 2012, rising to €6.1m a year in 2015.

The measures would save a total of €6.9m this year and more than €31m a year by 2015 if implemented. But plans to use 206 of the posts to improve staffing to schools in the Urban Band 2 primary schools would halve the eventual savings. A further 20 of the staff involved would be reallocated to support the Government strategy for improving literacy and numeracy.

School to see class sizes almost double

Brian Hennessy knows more than most about the likely impact of the threatened cuts to Scoil Iosagáin on Cork’s northside.

The 24-year-old has been teaching at the Farranree school for three years. But when he was a pupil at the nearby North Monastery primary and second-level schools, they too had the benefit of disadvantage support schemes.

Under the planned withdrawal of pre-DEIS teaching posts to some disadvantaged schools, Scoil Iosagáin would lose eight of its 24 classroom teachers. In addition, it faces the loss of two more class teachers as a result of another change to teacher allocations to DEIS Band 1 schools like it.

These measures alone may see class sizes at the 433-pupil school almost double in September.

The school also faces the loss of at least one of its six learning support teachers. Staff now fear the total number of teachers lost could reach 14.

“The minister is making these cuts divisive”, Brian said at a recent rally.

“But the parents in this community have shown how important their children’s education is to them,” he said.