Students losing out due to cutbacks, says school body

Students are losing out, personally and educationally, because frontline services in schools have not been protected, as claimed by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, it has been claimed.

At their annual conference in Killarney, hundreds of principals and secondary board of management chairpersons are discussing the increasing workload imposed by staffing cuts, management structure changes and a raft of education initiatives.

But the head of the Joint Managerial Body (JMB), which represents the boards of 380 voluntary secondary schools, said that it is misleading for the minister to insist frontline services have been protected in recent budgets.