ONLY 52 per cent of schools have access to a hall or general purpose room, 30 per cent of classrooms have no running water and one in five classrooms have unsuitable furniture, the INTO congress was told yesterday.
Half the infant classes lack sand trays, four fifths do not have water trays and three quarters have no creative play materials, delegates heard.
One in three teachers of infants do not receive financial assistance from the board of management to buy equipment, said Mr Peter Mullan, a Dublin south county delegate.
Mr Mullan was proposing a composite motion seeking a maximum number of pupils per infant class as well as the provision of qualified classroom assistants in all infant classes.
The motion, passed unanimously, also sought the payment of an annual grant of £1,000 to all infant teachers for materials and equipment.
It demanded the extension of the early start projects to all designated disadvantaged schools and the extension of the infant programme to three years in all primary schools. Quality in service education programmes for teachers were also demanded.
Early childhood education in the Republic, Mr Mullan said, meant the infant classes in the primary school and a large number of pre school initiatives. "Yet there is no Government department with responsibility for all these services, to implement a national policy for early childhood education," he said.
Delegates also passed a motion calling for the establishment of joint structures between the British and Irish governments and their respective departments of education, to promote closer co-operation between schools.
Proposing the motion, Mr Des Rainey, of the central executive committee, said that the INTO, as the only union representing teachers on the whole island, was "ideally placed to ensure that our education systems contribute to the eradication of some of the causes of past violence and reflect a real investment in our young people."
The motion originally sought the harmonisation of the education systems in both parts of the island of Ireland. But an amendment tabled by the Drogheda branch effectively deleted this clause. Speakers said this was a political rather than an educational question.
Another cross Border motion called on the British and Irish governments to undertake a joint educational initiative to combat the effects of social and economic disadvantage on pupils in both primary and post primary schools in both parts of Ireland, with emphasis on nursery or pre-school education and disadvantaged schools in rural areas.
Mr Liam McCloskey, incoming president of the INTO, said the effects of social and economic disadvantage recognised no boundaries. "The effects of family unemployment on children is as severe in Kerry as it is in Derry." A recent Combat Poverty Agency report found 60 per cent of pupils defined as disadvantaged lived in rural areas. Mr McCloskey said the situation was probably similar in Northern Ireland.
Rural disadvantage was more difficult to deal with because it was not so highly concentrated as its urban counterpart, Mr McCloskey said.
"It may have to be dealt with by a combination of individual pupil support and back up services such as in service for teachers and the appointment of home school community liaison teachers on a shared basis," he added.
It was acknowledged that the best ways of tackling educational disadvantage was by providing pre-school education, he told delegates.
"This must be made available to rural schools on both sides of the Border," Mr McCloskey said.