Delegates wary of minister’s vow on closures

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn failed to convince teachers there will not be further pay cuts or small rural school closures.

He told the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation annual congress in Cork that a report he intends to bring to Cabinet says that a four-teacher school is the optimum, minimum size for smaller schools.

But while the value-for-money review by his department says it would make teaching and learning more manageable, as no teacher would have more than two class groups, Mr Quinn insisted the report does not mean there will be forced closures of schools with one, two, or three teachers.