If you are stumbling across sacks of cans and bottles in your child’s primary school, welcome to free education.
The deposit return scheme is all that is standing between some primary schools and penury. Patiently feeding plastic bottles into the maw of machines outside supermarkets is keeping the lights on and schools open. Meanwhile, more is being spent on free hot meals for students than on education itself.
One principal in a middle-class urban area in the west told me it costs €35,000 per month to run her large school. She receives around €21,000 in funding every month from the Department of Education and Youth, but nearly €40,000 a month from the Department of Social Protection for school meals.
Her students’ families are not deprived. She does not begrudge the free meals, but she wonders about priorities, given that education has been underfunded for decades.
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She does resent that principals are supposed to be leading teaching and learning but instead, her days are consumed by finding ways to fund the €14,000-a-month shortfall.
She is also acutely conscious that she is in the privileged position of being able to balance her budget while colleagues, especially but not only in deprived areas, are constantly running unsustainable deficits.
Her hall is in high demand for rental. An after-school creche on the premises provides a valuable community service and desperately needed cash. She reluctantly levies voluntary subscriptions and is grateful that parents are both able and are eager to help with fundraising.
In contrast, she knows that a principal colleague in a small primary school of 150 students cleans the school herself because she cannot afford cleaners.
[ How is a school with €8,000 supposed to pay €10,000 worth of bills?Opens in new window ]
As Seamus Mulconry, secretary general of the Catholic Primary School Management Association (CPSMA) has said, what used to be some schools’ problem is now every school’s problem.
CPSMA analysed the increase in costs for 250 schools from the academic year 2018-2019 to 2023-2024. Cleaning and sanitation rose by 60 per cent, utilities by 44 per cent, and insurance by 34 per cent. ICT equipment and services rose by an astonishing 551 per cent but don’t mention ICT grants to principals.
This year, principals were anticipating an ICT grant that would be the same as previous years, that is, €39.73 per mainstream student. They invested in equipment and software on that basis. Instead, schools received 36 per cent less, €25.33 per mainstream student.
The department stated that there had been no cut. The grants had been front-loaded and it was always planned that the remaining tranche would be less than previous years.
Principals pointed out that this is typical of communications with schools. There is no clarity from year to year about the amount that schools will receive and uncertainty about when they will receive it. How are schools supposed to budget?
Schools are no longer places of chalk and talk. Schools use administration software such as Aladdin where the contracts can cost thousands.
[ Schools told they cannot spend €9m phone pouch budget on other education needs Opens in new window ]
Some schools have lifts – another maintenance contract. Alarms and security systems are now essential. Add that to the cost of living crisis and no wonder schools are, as Mulconry says, no longer underfunded but underwater.
This is the time of year when budget priorities are decided.
Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers is besieged from all quarters. He is to be commended for the fact that despite the pressures of the job, he has found time to be a community representative on the board of management in Scoil Ghrainne, in Clonee. It seems like an exemplary school, having had two autism classes since 2015, which it calls Croí classes. But it is still strapped for cash and its parents association fundraises, including through raffles and lotteries.
The parents association also fielded marathon runners and in conjunction with the Keith Duffy Foundation (KDF), raised €15,000 for “counselling services, autism assessments, teacher training for additional needs, and extracurricular activities for Croí classes. Thanks to KDF, the Sensory Pod Company is sponsoring a fully equipped sensory room.”
It is not a cheap shot at Chambers to point out that the state-run community national school where he volunteers has to fundraise for its most vulnerable students. The system was broken long before he entered politics.
The basic capitation grant is going up by €24 from September, but will not even make a dent in the persistent financial crisis. The payments system to schools is spread throughout the year and is cumbersome, frustrating and antiquated.
A commission or taskforce is urgently needed to examine school finances. Every school has to submit audited accounts to the Financial Support Services Unit. It’s imperative that all the data on these shortfalls is analysed now so that it is transparent what it really costs to run our schools. It is insane that schools pay VAT. Rendering education VAT exempt might be a first step.
No amount of bottles and cans will solve persistent financial shortfalls. School leaders’ public spirit is being exploited because everyone knows that their commitment to education keeps them grimly attempting to do the impossible. It is unacceptable to leave principals teetering dangerously on the edge of burnout.
