New teaching jobs a charade that will make little difference

The creation of 1,000 additional teaching posts may be good news for unemployed teachers but will result in little change in the daily operations of schools.

While the figure is reported as likely to emerge in Jan O’Sullivan’s first budget as Education Minister, it mirrors those the Department of Education had to provide in the last two years just to keep pace with growing pupil numbers. This time last year, her predecessor, Ruairí Quinn, said that 1,400 additional teachers would be hired in 2014.

Although education is one of the few areas where employment controls have not been as strictly imposed as other public service sectors, cuts to small schools’ staffing, the loss of guaranteed guidance counselling hours, as well as limits on special needs staffing, are often cleverly disguised in headline teacher numbers.

Schools are also anxious to see the lifting of a ban in place since 2009 on promotions to middle-management roles. Almost all assistant principal jobs and posts of responsibility vacated by retirements have remained unfilled in 4,000 primary and second-level schools since then.

It is a position which is “unsustainable” in the second-level sector in particular — not according to unions or school managers — but to senior department officials who briefed Ms O’Sullivan when she took charge in July.

Maintaining current mainstream pupil-teacher ratios will, no doubt, be better than disimproving it. But, as the economy shows far greater improvement than anticipated a year ago, it may not satisfy schools and parents.

Irish National Teachers Organisation general secretary Sheila Nunan said indications that there would be 1,000 extra teachers being sanctioned in today’s budget would barely keep the system afloat. “The school-going population continues to rise and there is an increase in the number of children identified with special needs, and last year’s budget allowed around 1,400 more teachers to be employed to cope with increasing pupil numbers,” she said.

“We want to see a plan to reduce class sizes, not to maintain them at their current unacceptably high level, the second-highest in Europe.”

Of almost equal concern in schools is the possibility that Ms O’Sullivan will implement cuts to day-to-day budgets that were notified in Mr Quinn’s first education budget almost three years ago.

The rolling cuts to capitation grants for schools — paid at a set rate for every student — will have reached 6% if she does so.

Universities and institutes of technology have warned they cannot sustain the further 1% funding cut threatened, coming on top of reductions in recent years which saw staff numbers plummet and student numbers soar.

Ms O’Sullivan’s department has dismissed an idea suggested by Higher Education Authority chief executive Tom Boland that, instead of reducing the Government allocation to colleges by the amount raised from the €250 extra paid by fee-paying students this year, colleges could keep the increased private investment.

The likelihood then, is that, despite the tireless political mantra of commitments to education investment, the Government will do little or nothing in today’s Budget to increase the average amount it spends on every student in Ireland.