Half of schools rely on parents’ handouts

Half of primary schools are now dependent on contributions from parents to balance the books.

The perilous financial state of school budgets has been revealed amid warnings that further cuts in next month’s budget would be “devastating”.

After the Department of Education imposed a 5% cut in grants for day-to-day running costs in 2011, a survey commissioned by the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association revealed that 46% of schools were in debt last year.

Another 22% revealed they were in a break-even position, with just 32% reporting a surplus.

The dire situation is also placing further financial pressures on already hard- pressed families to make up the difference.

The survey shows:

* 86% of primary schools rely on ad-hoc fundraising to try to make up any shortfall;

* 43% of schools ask parents to make an annual “voluntary contribution”;

* One-in-four schools is forced to rent out property to raise funding.

The crisis is particularly acute with schools in disadvantaged areas, with over half of Deis schools experiencing problems with deteriorating buildings and being unable to fund maintenance and repair works.

The survey, which was carried out by Amárach Research, received responses from 540 of the country’s 2,900 primary schools.

The situation is likely to get worse as grants for day-to-day running costs have been cut by a further 2% this year with an additional 2% cut due in 2013 and cuts of 1% in 2014 and again in 2015.

One third of all primary schools receive funding of less than €40,000 per annum from the Department of Education, while a quarter of all schools receive in excess of €100,000.

Two thirds of schools surveyed raise less than €14,000 from other sources, including “voluntary contributions” and other fundraising activities. Almost 60% of primary schools said they were likely to raise less from these activities in 2012 compared to last year.

CPMSA general secretary Eileen Flynn said any further cuts to their budgets would be “devastating”.

“Schools at primary level were always the poor relation in terms of funding even in times of plenty and now cannot even make ends meet.”

The CPMSA also expressed concern that any further increases in the pupil-teacher ratio would impact negatively on students and to those most in need disproportionately.

Half of all schools claimed they would be unable to fund essential maintenance work if the grant for minor works was discontinued.

The research showed 93% of national schools availed of such a grant from the Department of Education last year to carry out repairs. Such work was described as “absolutely necessary” by 72% of schools.

More than half of all schools are over 60 years old, with 35% operating out of pre-fab buildings. The vast majority of primary schools now operate book rental schemes.