Delight as school keeps three teachers
For one of the three teachers at Kilcoe National School, the 2012 changes to staffing ratios had meant the likelihood of being moved to another school in the autumn, but that is no longer now on the cards.
“We had 56 pupils last year, which is right on the borderline for keeping three teachers. Because we fell to 53 last September we’d have lost one of them but now the job is safe and it’s a huge relief, we’re delighted,” said principal Michelle Griffin.
The details, announced by Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan on Tuesday, mean any school with 53 children enrolled can now keep a third teacher, instead of needing 56 pupils.
Likewise, the numbers needed to retain a second teacher will fall from 20 to 19, and a fourth teacher can be maintained at schools with 83 pupils instead of 86 currently.
Kilcoe NS is situated between Skibbereen and Ballydehob, and is one of more than 20 saved by the new policy from dropping staff this year. But Ms Griffin said it would have meant a lot more than losing one class teacher.
“We have a learning support teacher here three days a week, but that would have fallen to two days. And if parents saw us drop to a two-teacher school, we can’t be sure, but it might have been the start of a real drop in numbers in the longer term,” she said.
The effect of the policy change will not be so immediate for Clogagh NS, near Ballinascarthy outside Bandon, but principal Bob Allen was equally relieved yesterday.
The school has been running since 1841 but he too feared the start of its demise if next year’s projected drop in numbers had the knock-on effect of meaning one of their three class teachers facing redeployment in September 2016.
“We always felt the budget changes discriminated against small schools and were trying to compartmentalise all schools into similar sizes, which you can’t do in rural communities like West Cork. Our numbers have dropped in recent years, but these things happen in cycles, and when young people start returning from Australia or Canada they will want their children to be able to go to the same parish schools as they did,” he said.
Ms O’Sullivan is also allowing one-teacher schools that are at least 8km from a primary school under the same patron to appoint a second teacher if they have 15 pupils, instead of the current figure of 20.
She said the Government will not be implementing the recommendations of a value-for-money report on small schools being published this week, which her department completed over two years ago.
The threats of further cuts to small schools arising from the report had made the issue one of the biggest facing Government party figures in the last few years.
Mr Allen said the campaigning of local communities and the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation played a big role in achieving what he said is the first step back towards restoring fair staffing levels for small schools.
