Unions criticise education reforms

Fresh calls have been made for Education Minister Ruairi Quinn to stop taking money from schools.

Minister Quinn came under fire for a second day from teachers’ unions, which have accused him of mishandling education reforms.

He addressed the annual Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) conference today, where he reiterated yesterday’s claims that the education budget cannot stretch and that cuts may be unavoidable.

But TUI president Bernie Ruane accused the Minister of taking the cheap way out.

“Many of us grew up in the 60s, 70s and 80s when there was even less money than today,” said Ms Ruane at the conference in Wexford.

“Yet the people of Ireland knew the value of investing in education as being the best way out of the difficulties then.

“In the 1960s the then Taoiseach used to remark that it was not that Ireland was too poor to invest in education, it was that it was too poor not to invest in it.”

Mr Quinn told the congress that the financial crisis has left his department with no option but to shake-up the education sector, which could result in cuts to small and rural schools, with some being amalgamated.

He also announced a restructuring of State scholarships, which will see the Government hand out a total €120,000 this September to 60 Leaving Cert pupils from Deis schools who hold medical cards. They will each receive €2,000.

“I believe this is the only equitable manner of distributing the limited funds we have available for bursaries – focussing them on the students who most need our support,” said Mr Quinn.

The bursaries will be awarded regionally and will also be determined by students’ Leaving Cert results.

They will completely replace any existing scholarship schemes and will only be available to students undertaking mathematics or scientific subjects.

Earlier, Mr Quinn told RTE that he plans to carry out an audit of some provincial towns to make the most of what educational resources they have and to determine what they need.

“In many cases, the Department of Education has not got on a single sheet of paper what the educational infrastructure resources are of town A, B or C,” said Mr Quinn.

“No rational planner, no business organisation would contemplate making changes unless it knew what the actual physical resources and man power resources were in that situation.”

This would help form any decisions made in the future that could potentially result in the closure or amalgamation of some schools.

However, the Minister came under fierce fire from a member of his Labour Party’s coalition partner Fine Gael.

Senator Fidelma Healy Eames argued that the Minister would be guilty of ripping the fabric of Irish rural life if small schools were to close, which she added would result in fewer young people living in the countryside.

Ms Healy Eames said while she understands the Government has a budget deficit to plug in the education sector, money could be raised from elsewhere.

“He is ripping at the structures of rural life,” the Fine Gael Senator went on. “There are ways to find the savings elsewhere in the system. This policy of ripping up the face of Irish rural life should be way down the rankings.”

Mr Quinn also spoke at the annual Irish National Teachers’ Organisation and Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland conferences yesterday.

The Minister said many in the education sector fail to fully understand the gravity of the financial crisis and the fact that cuts are unavoidable.

But delegates argued that cuts could be in breach of the Croke Park Agreement - a Government pact made in 2010 promising no further reductions in workers’ pay rates from 2010 to 2014 and no compulsory redundancies.