Labour urges outright ban on 'voluntary' school contributions
Voluntary contributions to schools are where parents pay towards various costs the school must incur outside of its funding.
Ireland must finally “break the link between money and education” that exacerbates “humiliation for children and families”, the Labour Party’s annual conference has heard.
Education spokesperson Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, said so-called “voluntary contributions” to schools should be banned, because they have become anything but voluntary.
Speaking in the Silversprings Hotel in Cork, Mr Ó Ríordáin also hit out at religion’s continued heavy influence in the Irish education system, claiming “you bump into a priest every time you want to do something”.
Voluntary contributions to schools are where parents pay towards various costs the school must incur outside of its funding.
Education Minister Norma Foley said at the beginning of the school year that parents “should not be called upon in any shape or form” to make voluntary contibutions, following a statement from the Catholic Primary School Management Association (CPSMA) that voluntary contributions would still be needed this year to help meet the likes of heating and energy costs.
Mr Ó Ríordáin said: “Far too many conversations in Irish education are about money. Far too many parents in Ireland, when they think about an interaction with schools, they think of money. The parents’ association is a fundraising entity. Voluntary contributions are something seen not to be voluntary.
“It limits the ability of the parent to fully engage in school life if they think they are going to be reminded about money that they owe the school. This is supposedly in a free education system.”
Ireland should look to the likes of Finland, where there is a prohibition on fundraising in schools and fee-paying schools are banned, he said.
The state must provide the block grant from which everything can be paid, he added.
“Because it is a humiliation for a child or for a family not to be able to fully engage in school life. We separate children in Ireland on the basis of income, we separate them on the basis of gender far too much.”
Religion still plays too great a role in Irish education, he claimed.
“Why is it that religion is still the overarching context in which children attend school in Ireland? Why do we still have 90% of our schools under religious patronage? How come when you try to change anything in the Irish education system, you basically find yourself bumping into a priest? We need to get much more radical,” he said.
PhD funding in Ireland is a “disgrace”, the party’s spokesperson on higher education, Senator Annie Hoey said.
Enormous potential in Ireland is stymied for myriad reasons, she claimed.
Some PhD candidates are not just “locked out” of research but are living below the poverty line, she said.
“These aren’t high-falutin' things, people are doing really valuable, important pieces of research that contribute to society. They are being locked out of research because they do not have the funding or the time or the opportunity in their own lives to give up work in order to be able to deep-dive into these really important pieces of research that contribute into society, our knowledge pool, our system,” she said.
It is a “shame in the land of saints and scholars that we’ll do just enough to get you into the workforce but after that you’re on your own”, she added.
“We do not have the diversity in our PhD candidates that we should have. That is our fault, it is our Government’s fault, that is funding’s fault, that people are locked out and not treated as workers, and basic dignity. It is a disgrace that we are paying PhD researchers below the poverty line and institutions are expecting a bualadh bas because they pay a couple of grand to get them over it.”
