NORTHERN Ireland's Department of Education has circulated proposals to cut £19 million from the funding it gives to socially disadvantaged schools.
The changes would also cut budgets for Irish language schools, though the amounts have not been quantified.
The Department has given education authorities little more than three weeks to comment on the possible radical changes in school funding, drawn up by consultants Coopers and Lybrand.
At present schools in the North receive an average of £276 for each pupil entitled to free school meals.
Coopers and Lybrand says this should be only about £75 per head, leading to an overall cut from £26 million to £7 million. The money saved should be allocated to schools on the basis of tests which would identify children with special educational needs.
The consultants admit the changes "may lead to considerable redistribution between schools. Indeed if they do not, there is little point in the effort of introducing them".
This will be a severe blow to schools with large numbers of disadvantaged children, especially Catholic schools, where twice as many children are entitled to free school meals as in Protestant schools.
Eighteen of the 20 most deprived secondary schools in the North are Catholic.
The proposal to cut social deprivation funding, worth more than £100,000 for many schools, was sent out a month after the arrival of a new Labour administration committed to tackling social disadvantage.
The Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, said 10 days ago that the British government's approach would "continue to have targeting social need running as a thread throughout".
The move is likely to raise questions as to why the new Education Minister, Mr Tony Worthington, has not tabled more positive proposals to counter deprivation.
There will also be suspicions over the fact that the government is sending out such a controversial proposal for such a short consultation at the very end of the school year.