Education cuts - An idea that might work

THE teachers’ unions will be in conference next week and we can expect all sorts of dire predictions because of a range of cuts imposed in the last two budgets.

One, which ends the €7.5 million book grant which helped less well-off students, seems especially cruel and will sustain and maybe even deepen disadvantage.

An Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) survey has found that, of 20 schools considered, the average would lose either two or three teachers. The ASTI did not say what percentage of staff these cuts represented. In a school with, say, 25 teachers it would be significant. However, in a schools with, say, 75 teachers it might not be so very significant.