Pressure on Quinn despite cuts reversal
His anticipated reversal of cuts to schools in the primary strands of his Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (Deis) scheme followed a review by his officials on the likely impact. It was announced in the budget last December that 428 teaching jobs held by schools under pre-Deis disadvantage programme were to be cut, but 235 will now be kept following Cabinet approval yesterday.
“I reflected on the impact on the schools and the socio-economic background of the pupils, and the families and communities,” Mr Quinn said yesterday.
Liam Beausang, principal of Scoil Iosagáin in Farranree on Cork’s northside, welcomed the moves. The school is in the Deis category for schools with the highest proportions of disadvantaged pupils and had been due to lose eight of 24 classroom teachers as they were held from two pre-Deis schemes. “It will mean we can still deliver on the literacy and numeracy initiatives for pupils that we and other Deis schools have been running for the last number of years, which were in danger of being severely restricted,” he said.
The announcement will ease political pressure on Mr Quinn that was likely to increase with a series of national protests against education cutbacks tomorrow.
However, he faces a further protest this afternoon by teachers in training over the latest cuts to affect them. His department has suspended payment of allowances for qualifications for entrants to teaching from Feb 1, pending the outcome of a wider public service review of allowances and premium payments.
The potential loss of guidance and counselling services for secondary students also remains a political headache for Mr Quinn. However, a department spokesperson said last night that no other cuts in the budget were under review.
The review of cuts to disadvantaged schools only looked at primary schools in the urban primary strand of Deis. It had been made clear that there would be no change to the cuts proposed at 163 second-level schools, and at 33 primary schools either in the Deis scheme for rural schools or which were not included in Deis despite their inclusion in earlier programmes.
Fianna Fáil’s Seanad education spokeswoman, Averil Power, said going ahead with almost half the teacher cuts meant children at disadvantaged schools still faced larger class sizes and cuts in support from September.
The department had argued that schools in Deis which were not in pre-Deis schemes were unfairly disadvantaged compared to schools which kept additional staff from the schemes which Deis replaced.
