Schools crisis – Parents want action not promises

AS Education Minister Noel Dempsey’s whirlwind tour of Ireland draws to a close, the question being asked by frustrated parents and pupils up and down the country is whether it was really worthwhile.

Doubtless, with elections looming, the minister’s answer will be a resounding “yes” when he visits Cork today before the final stages of his grand tour in Waterford city and Tallaght, Dublin.

But from a pragmatic viewpoint, it is extremely doubtful if the string of 17 meetings with local communities will result in extra resources so new classrooms can be built in place of overcrowded Portakabins, leaks fixed, new schools constructed or extra teachers provided for children with special needs.

The minister deserves credit for having the courage to confront the public in the course of this nationwide consultative process. Politically, it was a brave undertaking. Yet, any minister worth his salt should not require a tour of the country to discover the big problem facing the Irish education system is chronic lack of resources.

Mr Dempsey should know by now that people are sick of political promises. Where dilapidated schools are concerned they simply want the minister to put his money where his mouth is.

Admittedly, Mr Dempsey has managed to secure a more generous slice of the budgetary cake than his predecessor Michael Woods, a politician long on promises but woefully short on action.

Reflecting the fact that education will be a political hot potato in the June local elections, Mr Dempsey got a record amount of €380 million for the school building programme. But the sheer scale of the problem is so immense that this amounts to a proverbial drop in the ocean.

Whatever else he may have learned on his travels, Mr Dempsey should by now have a much keener grasp of the urgency of tackling the gross neglect of the fabric of education. This point was brought home forcefully when he unveiled a summer works scheme last December, to which more than 1,200 schools applied for funding. Ultimately, he allocated €31m between 450 national and secondary schools, which is barely an average of €68,000 per school.

That leaves 750 schools around the country having to put up with varying degrees of dilapidation.

The difficulties facing pupils, teachers and parents are graphically illustrated in today’s analysis showing the state of neglect in schools around the country.

In one school, for instance, a sudden U-turn by the department consigned 136 pupils and seven teachers to Portakabins.

At another, 35 children are housed in a 20ft x 20ft room, little bigger than a decent hen-house.

In heavy rainfall, the yard gets flooded by water contaminated with sewage, creating a major health hazard for the school’s 219 pupils and teachers.

Another school is vermin-infested and noxious fumes waft into the senior classroom from the boiler house. Its litany of defects include dangerous electric wiring, open-air urinals, inadequate washing facilities, missing and broken floor tiles and a sub-standard septic tank system. There are no toilet facilities for disabled persons even though a pupil with special needs attends the school. Dampness is a major problem and the flooring is unsafe.

If Mr Dempsey still has any doubts about the scandalous neglect of Ireland’s education system, he should visit the two-roomed, 134-year-old school where pupils and teachers have to depend on open fires for heating.

This, in the 21st century.