Access to education must not be cut off during the recession, a seminar in Dublin was told today.
Impact general secretary Peter McLoone told the Equality and Disadvantage in Education seminar in Dublin City University that it was vital to safeguard opportunities in education, particularly for the most vulnerable people in society, during the current recession.
“At this point in time, when there is a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty about the economic future we are all facing, education is one of our most precious resources, and one that warrants our protection,” he said.
“For the most disadvantaged people in our society education provides the only real, tangible route out of social disadvantage, poverty and exclusion.”
Mr McLoone said unless the right choices were made in the coming weeks and months, there was a real danger that the recession would deepen the experience of social exclusion.
"This is all the more reason to make the foundations of education stronger and continue to work to improve
access to the opportunities that education provides," he said.
"And if we get it right, the most vulnerable people in our society should emerge from this period of recession having had, at the very least, the same opportunities in education that they have today."
Barnardos chief executive Fergus Finlay said the education system had a huge role to play in ending childhood poverty.
“There are communities all over Ireland where children perform significantly less well, on average, than their peers in other communities. The difference in performance is not caused by the fact that some areas produce children that are less bright. The difference is caused, essentially, by poverty,” he said.
Mr Finlay criticised government spending on education particularly in the pre-school area.
“In the most recent OECD table I’ve seen, we spent the equivalent of around $5,900 per pupil on primary education; $7,500 on second level education and $10,200 on third level,” he said.
“All these figures were below the OECD average. We weren’t able to record any figure whatever for pre-school education, against an OECD average figure of $4,508.”
Jillian Van Turnhout, of the Children’s Rights Alliance, said Ireland was not living up to the 1916 Proclamation of Independence that pledged to cherish the children of the nation equally.
“From education to health and from material wellbeing to safeguarding children, it is obvious that we are deepening our two-tiered society and ignoring our most vulnerable children,” she said.
Delegates at the seminar included representatives from teaching unions and education organisations, as well as Impact members working in education.